Putting The Pigeon Among The Cats
by aLoggedInReader
Summary: Gabriel is a carrier pigeon with a mission. Dean is a cat with a grudge against pie-stealing pigeons, but a great love for blue-eyed can openers. Sam really wants nothing to do with all of this, except for when he does and Chuck and Castiel have no idea what their pets get up to behind their backs. Rated T for swearing and innuendo.
1. Chapter 1

**1**

"C'mon, Dean," Sam groaned, sitting next to his brother, trying to prevent him from doing one more of those things he would eventually regret, "You know exactly that Castiel doesn't like it when you hunt."

Not to mention that his brother would surely make it look like Sam had had a paw in this as well. Dean was good at making sure that they were together in everything that was going on, even if his younger brother had done nothing other than trying to reason with him.

"I am a hunter, hunting is what I do!" Dean insisted, "Cas won't change anything about that. Besides, it's not like he'll ever find out."

If his brother, the long-haired pussy, wanted to allow all sorts of pests to walk all over them that was his decision, but Dean would never stand for something like that!

He had been born and raised as a hunter by their father, something his younger brother hadn't taken to quite as well as he had. That he and Sam were bunking with Castiel now didn't change anything about that! Granted, it meant that hunting was more a sport than a necessity, but in this case it was about defending their world!

"Can't you just let it go this once?" Sam gave one of the long-suffering sighs he had brought to perfection while they both had still been kittens. Dean might have been the older one, the one their father have always put in charge and the one who was looking out for Sam, but he wasn't exactly the more reasonable one of them. Not that he'd ever acknowledge that.

"If we start to let this vermin get away with things like that now, they'll overrun us in no time flat!" Dean pointed out heatedly. Castiel having to buy any mouse traps or anything else to keep pests away from the house would let everyone know that Sam and Dean were not defending their territory as they should. Besides, the intruder their entire discussion was about had clearly crossed every line of decency when he had done what he had done!

"Yeah right, it's totally not only about the pie," Sam huffed, perking up his ears in a try to locate Castiel. It would be best for all of them if the blue-eyed man returned to the kitchen to read the newspaper. First of all Dean wouldn't dare to go through with his plan, if Castiel was there to see it and it was a fact that the human hardly ever got enough time to even unfold the paper before the short haired cat took a seat in the middle of it. Dean would be distracted, Sam would have the chance to just nap in peace and quiet and Castiel… Well, the purring of cats had a positive effect on the blood pressure of humans, so he'd get something out of it, as well.

"It's not _only_ about the pie!" Dean replied, scandalized, "It's about the pie _and_ it's a matter of principle!"

After successfully clearing up that misunderstanding, he resumed looking toward the windowsill where a still hot pie fresh from the oven was cooling off a little. There was no chance in hell that Dean would allow that damn pigeon to get to the crumbs before he had a chance to yet again!

"Whatever. I want nothing to do with it," Sam snorted, standing up and shaking his long fur before he walked toward the entrance to the living room. In the end, he only took a few steps before he sat back down, wrapping his bushy tail around his front paws, however. Okay, so maybe he wasn't a completely unwilling partner in crime all the time. Someone had to make sure that Dean didn't get in over his head, after all!

* * *

Everyone thought that Gabriel was incredibly slow for a carrier pigeon. In fact, his brothers often taunted him, saying that he was probably delivering the messages on foot, as long as it took him to return from one of the tours assigned to him. Little did they know that Gabriel was actually just incredibly intelligent and maybe just a little lazy… and maybe a bit too much of a sweet tooth. Most of all, he was clever, however.

He had soon realized that delivering his father's messages as quickly as he could – which was much quicker than his brothers, by the way – led to him being the favorite messenger, which in turn meant that he got assigned most of the work.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with hard work, if that was your thing. As a matter of fact, Gabriel had a lot of other responsibilities as well, though. There were dirty cars parked next to the street regularly and the drivers needed someone to drop a _hint_ that they had to be washed ever so often. There also were news to be heard, either from people at the park or from a radio when the windows were open. He also viewed it as his duty to make sure that the golden-brown feathers of his body and the slightly grayish ones of his wings stayed shiny and in a perfect condition, so bathing in the cleanest waters he could find was a part of his daily routine that took up some time, as well. Most of all he had to check to see if the guy in the plain white house with the perfectly symmetrically kept garden had produced baked goods again, however.

Damn, Gabriel wasn't implying that his father wasn't caring for them well enough, but he never gave them crumbs that the pigeon would sell his grandmother for. Okay, so that didn't mean a lot, since Chuck's mother was a pain in the ass and Gabriel might actually sell her for much less than a few crumbs of the best pie of the city. Not that anybody asked him and it was questionable that a pigeon could have sold a human being to another and make the contract legally binding, anyway.

Landing on a branch of the well trimmed bush next to the kitchen window, the pigeon soon realized that there was in fact a pie standing on the windowsill just waiting for him to come and pick up the crumbs that had fallen off the crust.

In Gabriel's opinion a crime was a perfect crime, if nobody noticed that it had been committed in the first place. The victims never learned that they had been victims that way and there was nobody to come after the perpetrator. When it was about stealing food, committing the perfect crime was really important, because people would start to guard their baked goods better otherwise.

Gabriel took another quick look around before he flapped his wings and made his way toward the target. Unfortunately, it had been days since he had last been able to get something sugary and the withdrawal kept him from noticing the slim, reddish-blonde cat pressed against the kitchen floor, getting ready to attack.

Dean had only wanted to give the flying rat enough of a scare so that he'd leave and never come back, but things didn't work out as planned. The moment the cat leapt onto the window sill with all the elegance a feline possessed was also the moment the pigeon turned around and saw him. Gabriel immediately started to flutter in wild panic and hit Dean square in the face with his right wing and prevented the cat from landing just in front of the pigeon as planned and instead sent him crashing into the stupid bird rather ungracefully.

Still on the floor, Sam shook his head and made his way to the countertop to see how bad the situation was. If they were lucky they'd all get away with a bit of a scare and maybe a scratch or two. They really didn't need a dead pigeon around the kitchen. If their human already didn't like any dead mice Dean presented to him as a token of his affection – not that Dean would ever admit that that was exactly what those were – then he'd absolutely hate seeing a bird murdered over pie!

"Son of a bitch!" the short-haired cat exclaimed, pawing at the unmoving bird. That really hadn't gone as planned and Sam, the little bitch, would totally say he'd told him so. He could already see the comment on his brother's tongue!

It wasn't any better that that was the moment Castiel came walking down the stairs. Sure, it kept Sam from actually saying anything, but it meant that the blue-eyed man was only seconds from discovering the dead bird.

"I'll hide the bird, you distract Cas!" Sam decided, quickly taking the pigeon between his jaws and jumping out of the window with it. He wasn't all too jealous, he really wasn't, but it was a fact that Castiel would be busy with petting Dean and caring for him as things were. If Sam had stayed, their human would have been busy searching for the other cat instead. Okay, the long-haired cat could have distracted him for a little while as well, but with Dean staying they had made sure that Castiel would be busy for quite some time.

"Dean, I want to trust you," the blue-eyed man stated in a mildly reprimanding tone, picking the short-haired cat up from the windowsill and taking him away from the pie, "But it seems your good behavior ends when it comes to pie."

Since Sam wasn't around to see it Dean widened his green eyes and gave Castiel a nearly pitiful look, rubbing his head against the side of the human's neck. If there was one thing other than hunting the blonde cat was perfect at it was playing Castiel like a fiddle.

Quite predictably, it only took a few more seconds until the human reached out toward the pie and broke off a piece of the crust to give to the cat. Yes, he was a pushover, especially when it came to Dean, but maybe he could at least teach the animal that there was no use trying to steal something he would get eventually, anyway.

"You have trained me well," Castiel chuckled, handing the blonde cat one more little piece of the pie crust when Dean stretched his neck to lick over his cheek affectionately.

"You got that right, Cas."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Mello18, Maddy Love Castiel, RachelPhobia, Heaven's Eagle, XxZessxX, Lovely Rain Dancer, Keefer, CherylB1964 and kb18142 for last chapter's reviews!

You guys are amazing! All the positive feedback was really overwhelming and you couldn't have made me happier!

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**2**

Outside, Sam sat in the shadows under a bush, the pigeon lying on the ground in front of him. He'd have to find a better hiding place once Castiel had left the kitchen and wasn't so likely to see what he was doing through the window anymore.

The reddish-brown cat was pretty damn good at digging, so he decided to just burry the golden bird under a bush in the neighbor's garden just to make sure. Their human would probably bring out the brush as soon as he got back home from that, spending too much time under bushes always made sure that stuff got tangled in Sam's long fur, but it would be worth it. Not to mention that Dean totally deserved having to watch while Castiel's full attention was on Sam while he was brushing him for everything he had done.

"Hey big guy," the pigeon suddenly spoke without opening his eyes or moving in the slightest, "I'd really like to make a dash for it, but you'll have to leave me alone for a second for that."

The long-haired cat blinked a couple of times, carefully nudging the bird with his paw just to make sure that he hadn't imagined things.

"Look, I got a message to deliver here," Gabriel huffed, opening his eyes and looking at the cat with big golden eyes as he struggled to his feet, "So…"

The pigeon didn't get any further before he dropped back to the ground with a pained sound that luckily was nowhere near loud or conspicuous enough to draw any human's attention.

Sam moved closer to the bird, trying to see what was wrong with him immediately. A few feathers were sticking out at a strange angle which probably meant that something was wrong with one of his wings. Now that just sucked!

"You bastards broke my wing!" Gabriel yelled accusingly.

"You… uh… tried to steal pie…" Sam countered lamely. It wasn't like it would have bothered him, if the pigeon had gotten the crumbs and had disappeared again. He definitely didn't deserve having his wing broken over something like that.

"Why don't you just put me out of my misery?" Gabriel exclaimed dramatically, covering his face with his good wing as he sobbed.

The long-haired cat watched the pigeon cry awkwardly for a few long moments before he moved closer. He wasn't exactly sure what he was meant to do here, but he couldn't simply sit by any longer, either. Maybe he could smooth the feathers down by licking over them or something. Licking wounds always worked for him and Dean, after all.

Sam hadn't even opened his mouth when Gabriel suddenly yelled, "Don't you dare!"

He'd have to be more careful what he said around the cat. He really didn't need the feline to take his ramblings too seriously and actually put him out of his misery!

"What? I… I…" Sam stammered, jumping back a little. The golden bird clearly was strange, not to say crazy, but they'd have to somehow figure out where to go from here.

"Okay, big guy, don't get your fury bits in a bunch," the pigeon stated surprisingly calm all of a sudden, "You broke it, you'll have to find a way to fix it, but since I'm an awesome guy, I'll tell you exactly what to do."

* * *

"Dean," Sam hissed from the open window, trying to catch his brother's attention, "Hey, Dean!"

In the end, the brown cat had to jump into the room to even have a chance to be noticed by his own older brother. Things like that always happened when Castiel was rubbing Dean's belly, however.

Oh well, it probably was better to let the human see him before he disappeared for a little while, anyway. Sam had never honestly regretted adopting Castiel as their human, but his tendency to always need to know where he and Dean were sometimes posed a bit of a problem.

"You need to keep Cas distracted," the brown cat stated, sitting on the carpet next to Castiel's feet while his brother was lying across the human's legs, "I have to… uh… run an errand."

Sam wasn't entirely sure how Gabriel had managed to get him to make the promise he had made, but it was too late for second thoughts, anyway. At least, he hadn't agreed to anything too outrageous… other than lending a pigeon a helping paw in the first place that was.

"How long can it take to get rid of a dead bird?" Dean snorted, rolling over so he was lying on his belly and could look down toward his brother better. There was no way he could fully relax into the belly rubs while Sam was watching. He was only allowing Castiel to give them to him because it meant so much to the human, anyway. It was his story and he was sticking with it to the end!

"Gabriel's not dead," Sam groaned, bumping his head against Castiel's hand absentmindedly when the human reached down to pet him, as well. He usually appreciated it a lot that the blue-eyed man was trying to give each of them their share of his affections, but as things were he had other things to think of.

"Huh," Dean commented noncommittally, "What's the problem then?"

"He broke his wing," Sam replied, his shoulders slumping slightly. It wasn't exactly clear if the hurt wing was the result of Dean colliding with Gabriel or if it had come from Sam grabbing the pigeon and jumping out of the window with him. It didn't matter whose fault it had been exactly, anyway. The pigeon now needed help and the brown cat was going to give it to him.

"Sucks for him," the older cat stated, nudging Castiel's hand demandingly when the human stopped to scratch his back for a moment to cock his head in confusion over his cats' strange behavior.

"And he's a freaking carrier pigeon!" the brown cat explained. Dean had to understand why the situation was even worse than first assumed now! They hadn't hurt some random rat with wings. They had hurt a bird who had a human waiting for him at home… a bird with a purpose, too!

"Again, sucks for him," the blonde cat yawned, resting his chin on top of Castiel's knee.

"We have to deliver his message before I can take him home," Sam huffed when it became all too clear that Dean couldn't care less about the mission he had taken on. Well, the older cat would have to help him, if he wanted it or not!

Gabriel was pretty damn demanding and had given the cat a list of things he wanted as compensation for his hurt wing. The brown cat had said no to most of them, but there had been no bargaining about two of the demands. To be fair, the cat had agreed to make sure that the golden bird got home safe and sound immediately, it was the part about delivering the message first that he had tried to get out of.

"Sammy, did you just listen to yourself?" Dean laughed, puzzling Castiel once more with it. The brothers usually didn't hold longer conversations when the human was around to witness it, so it was understandable that it would seem strange to him. The blonde cat would have to distract him from what he had witnessed by allowing him to play with a mouse on a string later.

"He won't tell me where he's at home before we have delivered the damn message!" Sam replied lamely. Yes, he was listening to himself and he had to admit that it sounded pathetic, but he had given his word and he was going to keep it!

"So? Eat the fucker," Dean suggested nonchalantly. It wasn't rocket science, really. Even if they didn't need to eat small animals to survive - in fact, the food Castiel gave them tasted better, anyway - there was nothing keeping them from doing it just because one of the pests annoyed them.

"I'm not eating him!" Sam protested strongly, "I don't know where he's been!"

The brown cat had standards and was living after a strict diet. That his brother would probably end as a fat lap-cat didn't mean that he wanted the same! Really, Castiel wasn't the only one to blame for that. It was Dean's own decision to always demand that the human had to share everything he ate with him. When the younger cat wanted to annoy his brother he went as far as to call it begging. The blonde cat's reactions to the slightest suggestion of him acting like Castiel's good little pet was too funny not to bring it up every now and then, anyway.

"But you'll carry him around to deliver a message," Dean retorted smugly.

"I… uh…" Sam stammered, unsure of what to say to that. He had to admit that that point went to his brother. "Just make sure Cas doesn't notice I'm gone!"

The brown cat quickly rubbed himself against Castiel's legs, walking around them in a figure eight a couple of times to make sure that the human fully registered that he had been there. He would be gone for a while most likely, so it was of the utmost importance that the blue-eyed man didn't feel like he had been away for even longer. He really didn't need the human to go out and yell his name or ask the neighbors if they had seen him.

"Fine, bitch, but you owe me!" Dean agreed easily. What his brother asked of him was to stick around Castiel to give the human the feeling that his cats were there and that really wasn't that much of a sacrifice. In fact, the older cat already spent every moment his brother wasn't watching cuddling up to Castiel, playing with the human or resting next to him to make sure that nothing happened to him. Sam, of course, didn't know that, however.

"Oh yeah, I'll owe you for giving you every excuse you could ever want to just play all cuddly kitty with your favorite human," the brown cat muttered under his breath as he jogged toward the window to get back to the garden and to Gabriel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, RachelPhobia, kb18142, CherylB1964, FlowerChild13, Lovely Rain Dancer, DeanCasLover22, Keefer, The Lazy Angel, Mello18 and XxZessxX for last chapter's reviews!

* * *

**3**

Carrying Gabriel around in Sam's mouth hadn't been an option. They would have to communicate to make sure that they didn't lose their way and since they were probably going to take a while to reach their destination the brown cat would have gotten bad jaw-cramps, anyway.

Unfortunately, the best option either one of them had been able to come up with instead involved the pigeon riding Sam piggyback. That in turn prevented them from using the street or sidewalk. The reddish-brown cat had successfully argued that travelling that openly made it too likely that they'd come across a dog or another cat and that would most likely lead to Sam having to hightail it. It wasn't like Gabriel could hold on to him that well, so the pigeon would be lost in the process and neither one of them wanted that. Of course, there also was that little detail about Sam really not wanting to be seen in the position he was in, so crawling around behind bushes and in the shadows of trees and shacks just was the better option.

"So, you're delivering messages for your human?" Sam asked, trying to make some small talk while they crossed the backyard of Castiel's direct neighbor, who luckily never was home during the day. This was one of the easy parts of their journey, so they could use it to get to know each other a bit better. Not that he was particularly interested in speaking to Gabriel, but he had some hopes that it would distract the bird from running his beak through the hair at the back of Sam's head. Whatever reason he was doing that for to begin with.

"We're delivering messages for our father," Gabriel corrected patiently. The cat had been close to the truth, but the pigeon still wasn't willing to let that slide. If they were sharing stories already they should get the details right.

"Uh… your father is a human?" Sam replied, feeling incredibly stupid for having to ask. Really, what other conclusions could he have drawn from what the bird had said? But he'd feel even sillier, if it later turned out that he had been wrong, so asking it was.

"Father is God," the pigeon spoke in a tone that made clear that he at least thought that what he had just had to explain should have been obvious.

"Wait, what?" The brown cat came to a full stop as he was trying to process what he had just heard. He didn't really care for religion and Dean didn't either, but Castiel was a believer and so they had heard enough from prayers or TV programs to know who God was supposed to be. Okay, going by the blue-eyed human's beliefs, they all were children of God, but it had sounded like Gabriel really thought that his actual, flesh and blood father was that very being.

"Think, Gigantor! How could a mere human be the father of four archangel-pigeons?" Gabriel insisted. Little did he know that he and his three brothers might as well have called the heating lamp their eggs had spent quite some time under their mother. Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Lucifer were happy with their view of the world, anyway.

"Right, so he has to be God," Sam huffed out a laugh, starting to walk toward the end of the garden again. He really had tried to stay serious, but the golden bird's logic was just too outrageous. However, there was no use arguing with a madman – a saying Castiel also used whenever his brother Balthazar got too annoying – so the brown cat vowed to leave it at that and resist making any more comments about the topic.

"Now you get it!" Gabriel exclaimed happily. He chose to completely ignore the tone the cat had used in favor of winning the argument. Besides, there was no use arguing with a disbeliever. "What about your human?"

Sam was quite grateful about the change of topic, but that didn't mean that he wanted to go into great detail about the story of his life.

"Dean and I adopted him about a year ago," the cat finally answered. The fact that they had allowed Castiel into their family wasn't what he didn't want to speak about. He wasn't going to discuss the circumstances, however.

"Oh, I see," Gabriel nodded, even though Sam couldn't see it, "Of course, two tom-cats, how else would you reproduce?"

"What?" the cat nearly squeaked. Okay, so he hadn't told the pigeon that Dean was his brother, but how in hell had the golden bird come to the conclusion that they were lovers before considering the more likely family-option?

"Obviously you had to adopt because even if your fur is pretty girlish, it still doesn't give you the right bits and pieces to be a mommy," Gabriel explained. He wasn't stupid, in fact he thought he was pretty damn intelligent, so he had realized that he had said something wrong the very moment Sam had reacted to his statement. He was however a bit of a smartass and he liked to annoy people just for shits and giggles ever so often, too.

"You know, I could still eat you!" the long-haired cat snorted. Actually, he didn't even have to eat the pigeon. He could simply shake him off his back and go back home, leaving the wounded bird to fend for his own and… dammit, he couldn't do that.

"You're a much too nice guy to do that," Gabriel replied smugly. If the cat had ever seriously considered eating him, he would have done it right at the start, possibly before he had even spoken his first words.

It looked like the long-haired cat had decided to stop speaking to the pigeon because of his last faux-pas, however. Gabriel had to say that it was understandable, but he still couldn't have it. He hadn't survived getting crushed by one cat and then being transported in another one's mouth to die of boredom now!

"Anyway, how's your sex-life?" the pigeon barely got out before he suddenly flew off Sam's back when the cat shook his entire body. Gabriel was too stunned to even voice the pain that move had caused his wing for a few seconds. When he was ready to moan and complain the long-haired cat was already walking away from him.

"Uh… Samsquatch?" the golden bird chirped, trying his best to hop along with the cat's stride. He wouldn't be able to keep up that sort of speed for long, however.

Luckily Sam turned around just a moment later, green eyes staring into golden-brown ones as he barked, "What?"

"You lost me," Gabriel pointed out in a small voice, trying to look pitiful. He probably would be able to come up with another plan to get his message delivered, or if everything failed a plan to get back home, but it would be easiest if he could convince Sam to allow him to get back into the metaphorical saddle. Not to mention that he had started to like the cat pretty much from the first moment he hadn't eaten him on.

"Guess again," Sam huffed. Dean could be pretty crass at times, but even he knew better than to ask questions like that. Okay, fine, he didn't, but he always got to suffer the consequences just like Gabriel did now.

"You dropped me," the golden bird came as close to pouting as a pigeon ever could, "And that really wasn't nice, by the way."

Gabriel extended his hurt wing a little to hopefully give the cat a bit of a bad conscience about hurting him yet again, or to let Sam know that he had already been punished enough, whichever worked. It seemed to work well enough, too. The long-haired cat's eyes softened a little nearly immediately.

"No questions about… _that_ anymore!" Sam demanded, lying flat on the ground so Gabriel could hop back onto him. Mercifully, there was silence for a while until the pigeon had found a good spot to sit again. He even managed to keep his beak firmly shut until they had reached the fence at the end of the garden.

"Before you throw me off again, you should know that I'm fully prepared to use my claws this time around," Gabriel announced as Sam started to look for a way through the hedge that wouldn't be too much of a tight fit for both of them, "Your human took you to the vet, didn't he?"

The strong reaction the long-haired cat had given him could only be due to him being very touchy about the topic of sex. The pigeon felt a little stupid for not thinking of the obvious issue here. Being neutered could make everyone a little moody, the golden bird was sure.

"What did I just say?" Sam hissed. He was considering throwing Gabriel off again already, but he knew he'd only have to stop and let him get back onto his back later then. He had promised to help the pigeon deliver his message and he was going to go through with it! He might however eat the idiot as soon as the job was done. Even though he knew he wasn't going to go through with it, the thought was comforting that very moment.

"You're no less of a man because of that I hear," Gabriel chattered on, still keeping his claws ready to hold on to the cat's flesh if he had to, "And, hey, silver linings. There's still cuddling!"

Sam had had every intention to simply ignore whatever the pigeon was saying, but the bird was rubbing salt into still open wounds and the long-haired cat couldn't help exploding any longer.

"My mate died in a fire," the cat replied acidly, "What's the silver lining about that?"

Gabriel fell into complete silence after that, but it did nothing for Sam's mood, anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note:** Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, RachelPhobia, Maddy Love Castiel, CherylB1964, Lovely Rain Dancer, kb18142, XxZessxX and one guest for last chapter's reviews!

An early post today, because I'll be traveling tomorrow... and not really incidentally Larkafree will be traveling tomorrow... so yeah, you get an early update because I'll meet a great person I actually got to know over this site tomorrow! :-)

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**4**

"Sam," Gabriel said cautiously after they had crossed another back yard in complete silence, "I'm sorry."

He had meant to tease the cat a little, maybe aggravate him enough to finally get him talking about things. What he hadn't wanted was to bring up bad memories and make his companion sad. The golden pigeon might not have been Mr. Nice Guy exactly, but he still felt bad about going too far and not only because he needed Sam to get around as things were.

The long-haired cat made a sound that told the pigeon nothing more than that his words had been heard. That was something, but it wasn't what Gabriel was looking for.

"I'm _really_ sorry," the pigeon reinforced his former statement.

"Look, it's okay," Sam sighed, "You didn't know."

The long-haired cat knew that he couldn't hold the pigeon fully accountable for something he had done accidentally, but that didn't mean that he hadn't been hurt. However, chances were that Gabriel would never let it be, if Sam didn't pay lip-service and said that everything was okay. Unfortunately, chances also were that the bird would go back to trying to engage him in conversation as soon as he thought that they were on good terms again.

"I'm sorry that something like that happened to you," Gabriel clarified just in case the brown cat assumed that he was only sorry for what he had said. That didn't quite cut it, though.

"Let's just not talk about this anymore," Sam groaned. Dammit, the pigeon was allowed to chatter about whatever the hell he wanted other than what he was going on about that moment, if the cat got what he wanted.

"Okay, sure," Gabriel agreed, nodding seriously, even though Sam still couldn't see it, "But if you ever want to spill your guts, I'm all ears."

Realistically, they didn't know each other well enough for deep conversations yet, but that would change with time and Sam should know that the golden pigeon was all too willing to listen once he was ready. Unless of course there was something else he absolutely had to do at the time, which would be unfortunate. Maybe he should simply give Sam a fixed time-slot in his schedule to try and prevent that from happening. Gabriel wondered how the cat would react, if he tried to fix appointments for them.

"Uh… how long exactly do you think it's going to take to deliver that message?" the long-haired cat asked, frowning deeply. He honestly hadn't thought that they'd spend enough time together to get to know each other even remotely well enough to have talks like that. In his mind he was already trotting through Alaska, the golden bird still sitting on his back.

"What? You think we're not going to see each other afterward?" Gabriel laughed, giving the cat a gentle tap to the back of his head with his beak, "I know where you live, Samsquatch!"

"Woohoo," Sam replied with little enthusiasm. He couldn't help thinking that what the pigeon had just said sounded more like a threat than a promise, though. Not to mention that Dean clearly wouldn't be happy to see the bird again and Sam really didn't want to play referee between them all the time. It was bad enough that he had to play spoilsport for Dean ever so often.

"Now you're just being a sourpuss," Gabriel huffed, laughing about his own choice of words just a second later, however. "You'll be able to bare your heart and soul to me whenever you're ready for it that way!"

"I've got my brother…" Sam started automatically before he realized that saying that he had Dean to talk about his feelings with was a pretty damn big lie, "Okay, I'll think about it."

Maybe there were a few things he wanted to talk about some time in the future, but not the one they had touched on before. There were other things Dean didn't want to hear about that Gabriel might be more open to, however.

"You should. Brothers can be great, but you should have someone else, too," the golden pigeon replied, "I'm good at listening, too. You know, I've got three older brothers and they don't ever shut up."

In the time it took Gabriel to explain that his brothers' names were Raphael, Michael and Lucifer, that they were living with their father whose name was Chuck and many things considering the ongoing arguments all his brothers were having among themselves – especially Michael and Lucifer – they had crossed another backyard and were well on the way to the next one. It really looked like the great listener was quite the chatterbox, but that suited Sam just fine, anyway.

* * *

Castiel put the coffee can on the table, sitting down on the chair next to the one Dean was sitting on. The blue-eyed human had noticed a while ago that while Sam chose where he took a seat according to the mood he was in, Dean was always sitting on the same chair and Castiel always chose the one to his right then. Incidentally, the long-haired cat always left that chair empty, too. Both his cats were clearly intelligent.

"I swear, Cassy, the relationship you have to that cat is just strange at this point," Balthazar commented, shaking his head when Castiel stroked Dean's head tenderly and then broke off a piece of the crust of his piece of pie to feed to the animal.

"I don't think you are in a position to judge me," the blue-eyed man retorted, giving his brother the same intense stare that the green-eyed cat gave him at the same moment. The two of them couldn't have proven Balthazar's point any better, if they had consciously tried. Then again, people were supposed to become more and more like their pets the more time they spent with them.

"You are the strange one, I am the devious one, learn the difference," the blonde man pointed out, "For the record, the difference is that while you have a strange fixation on a male feline I get a lot of pussy."

Due to his reclusive nature Castiel had taken a very long time to pick up on certain figures of speech and especially innuendo, but the one his brother had just used was bad enough to make him shake his head disapprovingly immediately. Getting into a discussion with Balthazar was completely useless however, so he broke off another piece of pie to feed Dean with instead. The orange-blonde cat immediately thanked him with a few gentle licks over his hand, too.

"You keep feeding Dean like that and he'll be nothing more than a gigantic ball of fur soon enough," the older man spoke his mind once more. Not that anyone appreciated it.

A part of Dean was glad that his brother wasn't around to hear that comment, because Sammy had been complaining about his eating habits ever since they had become somewhat domestic. At the same time, the short-haired cat could have really used the backup his brother could have provided. When the two of them were walking around Castiel's legs, rubbing against them, it was a sign of affection, or a sign that they wanted something, when they were doing it to Balthazar, they were doing it to get hair all over his expensive trousers and to generally inconvenience him.

"Dean is in perfect health and he exercises enough to make up for the treats, thank you very much," Castiel immediately defended his little friend, stroking his back to make up for his brother's comment.

"Speaking of gigantic balls of fur, where is Swiffer?" Balthazar asked, ignoring his younger brother's defensiveness. Yes, the blonde man had encouraged Castiel to take the cats in when they had found them, but he hadn't known that two felines would be all the company his little brother wanted and that he'd become even more of a hermit. Someone had to make sure that Cas got a reminder that he wasn't exactly acting normal every now and then. At least, his brother had his job as a shift manager at a burger joint, however. It did nothing for his eating habbits and made sure that there were even more cat treats of the unhealthy kind, but it made sure that he was among people regularly.

"_Sam_ left shortly before your arrival," Castiel answered before the corners of his mouth curled upward into a small smirk and he added, "He must have felt that you were on the way."

"Did you just try to insult me?" Balthazar smirked back, patting his brother's shoulder, "You make me so proud sometimes."

* * *

"Sam, stop! For the love of father, stop!" Gabriel suddenly exclaimed, startling the cat badly enough that he immediately dropped to the ground.

While Sam was still looking around trying to figure out what kind of threat they were dealing with, the pigeon hopped off his back and made his way from under the bushes to a more open area of the garden of all places.

"Thank you father!" the golden bird chirped happily, "Manna straight from the Heaven's above!"

The brown cat frowned and crawled out of the bushes to see what the hell his little companion was speaking about. Sam couldn't help feeling that he shouldn't have been surprised, but he wasn't quite accustomed to the levels of crazy the pigeon was capable of.

"Come on, Gigantor, help me secure the cookie!" Gabriel called, trying to drag the cookie half he had found back into the bushes unsuccessfully, "You can have some, too."

Sam shook his head exasperatedly, but quickly took the cookie between his jaws to get it into a hiding place as quickly as possible. They weren't in one of the gardens he actually liked to spend more time than necessary in.

"Can you eat the thing quickly? I want to get out of here!" the long-haired cat tried to urge the bird on. As happy as Gabriel was to munch on his treat it was doubtable that he would allow them to leave before he had eaten it all and that would take quite some time, even if he hurried.

"Uh… the _thing_ is bigger than my head," the pigeon retorted, giving the cat a strange look, "What are you wetting your fur about, anyway?"

Sam sighed heavily, making himself small once more and keeping an eye open for any movement in the garden. "We're in Anna's garden."


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, CherylB1964, Lovely Rain Dancer, XxZessxX, Maddy Love Castiel, Keefer, kb18142 and Morgana Ravenheart for last chapter's reviews!

* * *

**5**

Gabriel was still doing his best to devour the cookie half he had found, but he also had questions to make, so he had to take a break from that. He didn't think that Sam would appreciate it too much, if he threw up as soon as they were back in motion from eating too much too quickly, anyway.

"So, Anna is a pit-bull or something?" the golden pigeon asked, watching his feline companion as he was looking around the garden nervously.

"Anna is a human," Sam replied, looking toward the windows to see if he could pick up on any movement in the house, "And a total bitch."

Gabriel nodded thoughtfully, picking on a few more cookie pieces while he considered the next step to take. This time they were talking about a human woman and the long-haired cat had already expressed how he was feeling toward her, so it shouldn't be too much of a mistake to ask. Of course, the pigeon had already started to speak before he had come to the conclusion that it was a safe topic to talk about. "She comes after you with a broom the moment she sees you?"

"I wish," Sam snorted disdainfully, "I swear she tried to run me over with her car!"

Okay, so he had been sunbathing in the driveway at the time, but it had been the driveway of their own house. He had hardly managed to jump aside in time!

Even if the long-haired cat had known that going backward had made her lose sight of him and she hadn't exactly realized what she was doing at the time, he still would have hated her the same.

"That's rude," Gabriel agreed. He hadn't quite expected that Sam wasn't done with complaining about the woman, however. This far he had had to prompt every little thing the cat had told him, after all.

"She also tried to take Dean from us," the long-haired cat ranted on, "She just showed up to bring Castiel some cupcakes – like he needs them – and then she wanted to take Dean home with her! The one time Dean and I came to visit her she lured him into the house and only let him go again in the morning!"

In fact, she hadn't even let him go, she had taken him back to Castiel's like she had only just found him. At least, Dean had learned not to get too close to her from that incident. He had been under the impression that she was a pretty nice person before. The fool!

"What a bitch!" Gabriel stated, stepping away from the cookie which had shrunk considerably since he had picked it up, "Under those circumstances, I don't want her cookie anymore!"

Not to mention that he was completely full and content, anyway. He didn't have to tell his feline friend that he wasn't acting completely selflessly, however. They were still building their friendly relationship, so sucking up when a chance presented itself sounded like a good idea.

"Wait," the brown cat exclaimed before Gabriel could hop back onto his back, turning around to look the pigeon in the eye, "While we have a minute already we should talk about where we're going from here."

There were a few more unfriendly places in their near future and for all it looked Anna wasn't at home, so they might as well stop for a little while longer instead of having to stop again at a place that was no better or maybe even worse.

"I'd say we get to the end of the street and then I look for landmarks I know to get us further," the golden pigeon explained how he had thought this would go. This far he had only pointed Sam into the general direction and they had followed it. Speaking about the greater plan really might have been a good idea, though.

"End of the street, okay," Sam nodded thoughtfully, "That means we have to go through Crowley's domain."

Or they could cross the street and crawl around in the bushes on the other side, but they were nearing the time of the day when everyone and their mother returned home from work which meant that there'd be a lot of traffic. Crossing the street was risky most of the time anyway, but with Gabriel on his back it was downright suicidal as long as there were cars coming from every direction. Not to mention that there were a lot of demonic dogs living on the other side of the road.

"Crowley," the bird repeated, clearly hoping for an explanation. Flying over the street regularly didn't mean that he knew much about the people living there. Generally spoken Gabriel didn't care much for specific people, he liked looking at the bigger picture, better. Hearing of worldwide news and collecting information from everyone he came across, but he didn't care too much about the actual people it came from.

Being earthbound for once was an interesting experience in that respect. He began to see why Sam had to know about the people and animals around. He couldn't just take off and be far away in a second, after all.

"Crowley is… one day he's sort of okay, doesn't meddle with things, then the next he's the devil in person," Sam replied, "We'll have to thread very carefully."

They still had a while before they would get to that garden, however. The long-haired cat would have considered simply walking on top of the wooden fence surrounding the garden, but he had to admit that Crowley tended to distract him enough to make balancing hard and with Gabriel on his back he was feeling a little off, anyway. Balancing over greater distances was out of the question.

Oh well, they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

* * *

Dean officially loathed Balthazar. Yes, he really hated the bastard! At least he had gotten a good scratch in, but the stupid blonde human had still managed to tie the string to his tail so he was dragging the fake mouse behind him wherever he went.

The blonde cat had hissed and ran in circles for a good long while and the dick had only laughed, too! Luckily Castiel had returned from the bathroom just a minute later and had immediately picked Dean up to help him get rid of the misused toy all while scolding his asshole brother for doing this to the cat in the first place.

Dean had allowed Castiel to handle him without hissing and without trying to scratch him to show the human that he was still appreciated, but he still had jumped off his arms and had fled upstairs the moment the string had come loose. He trusted the blue-eyed human with his life, but he couldn't stand to see the blonde one for a moment longer, anyway.

At least, hurrying toward the parts of the house where Balthazar didn't go gave Dean an idea. Dusk was getting closer and the blonde cat had completely neglected to ask his brother when he thought he would return. So, he could always go and search for Sammy, but then Castiel would be completely alone and he'd probably panic without either one of his adoptive cats around. Asking someone else for a favor seemed like the better idea, really.

Dean quickly squeezed through the small opening leading to the attic that the previous owner had never cared to close off and Castiel most likely didn't even know was there. It suited the short-haired cat just well, however. There was someone he needed to talk to on that attic.

"Benny, hey Benny!" Dean called, looking around trying to spot his friend. Since the sun had only just begun to set, chances were that he was still fast asleep, so maybe calling for him wouldn't be enough to catch his attention.

"It's good to see you, Dean," the bat answered still sounding sleepily. He had decided to rest under an old hat that was hanging from a hook on one of the main beams that day and had been hidden very well. His sleep was hardly ever deep enough not to notice when someone, even if it was only Dean who didn't pose a threat to him, was making noise around the room.

"I gotta ask you for a favor," the cat admitted immediately. They could still make conversation later, Dean enjoyed their talks very much after all, but he wanted to make sure that the issue with his brother was addressed first.

"Shoot," Benny replied, unfolding his wings and gliding toward the spot on the floor the cat was sitting on, always careful to stay in the shadows, however.

"My brother, long-haired pussy that he is, got himself into a mission with a carrier pigeon," Dean explained, leaving out the part where it was sort of his fault that the mission existed in the first place, "They went to deliver some message, but Sammy never said how long he expected to be gone, so I thought maybe you could fly around a bit and if you find him anywhere you ask the bitch when he intends to swing his ass home again."

Actually, the older cat had noticed belatedly that he hadn't made all the important questions when his brother had told him about that mission he was going on. Once he had realized his mistake he had started to worry a little. Sam was more than capable of taking care of himself, but that didn't mean that Dean didn't want to protect him however he could. It also didn't mean that he didn't want to know where Sammy was when he wasn't home, especially when he didn't expect to be home over night.

Benny grinned slightly. He had realized very early on that the nearly derogatory way the blonde cat often spoke about his brother was only masking the deep rooted love he had for his younger sibling.

"Pretty sure I can do that," the bat drawled, "Soon as the sun goes down."

The cat nodded satisfied. That was everything he had wanted to hear. "I owe you."

"You don't owe me nothing," Benny was quick to clarify, "I'm living under your roof, ain't I?"

Dean had always known that there was a pretty damn good reason why he liked the bat that much.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, Keefer, kb18142, CherylB1964, Lovely Rain Dancer, XxZessxX and MariMagda for last chapter's reviews!

* * *

**6**

After hearing so much about how Crowley was one mean son of a bitch, how they'd have to be very careful when crossing his territory and how they could only hope he wasn't home, Gabriel had expected a Great Dane or a Bulldog. Hell, maybe even a German Shepherd or a Golden Retriever in the very least.

"_That's_ Crowley?" the golden pigeon asked, looking through the opening in the fence they had just reached.

Sam had insisted that they stop and look for the dog before they set foot into the garden, so the long-haired cat could evaluate the situation they were going to get themselves into. Gabriel had to admit that he had been quite taken with his horse's – not that he'd ever tell Sam that he thought of him like that secretly – logical thinking. He had been until he had seen what exactly the cat was so worried about first hand, anyway. Maybe his companion had a this far hidden tendency to overdramatize things instead.

"You won't talk like that when we come face to face with his teeth," Sam huffed.

"Okay, yeah," Gabriel agreed before he went back to being incredulous, "But really? A pug?"

Granted, the pug was pitch black and thus might have been ever so slightly more menacing than the average pug, but every little bit of menace added to his looks by the color of his fur was completely and utterly eradicated by the big pink bow adorning his collar.

Sam sighed, "I know how it looks Gabe, but believe me that bow only makes him angrier. He used to be king of the shelter, or so he says, before Abby took him home. He's been unsuccessfully trying to take over her territory ever since."

To be fair though, at this point it looked like Crowley's owner was only adding insult to injury and quite possibly purposely so, too. For all the brown cat knew, Abby was not exactly happy with her badly behaved dog and after subjecting him to all sorts of training hadn't helped, she had settled for endlessly humiliating the animal instead. There was no need to say that Sam thought that Crowley's owner was at least as screwed up as her pug.

"Hello boys," Crowley suddenly stated from the other side of the fence, looking around in confusion when he realized that there was only one cat to be seen through the hole, "Where is that moronic brother of yours?"

The black pug was somewhat accustomed to seeing those two cats every now and then. It looked like their ways were crossing more often than the three of them were comfortable with, really. Then again, at times the two morons were at least humorous to watch and Crowley quite liked that both of them didn't admit that they were scared of him, but when he charged them and barked the spark of fear was clearly there in their eyes. The pug saw it without a doubt, anyway.

"I exchanged him for a pigeon," Sam replied casually, keeping his distance to the hole while he didn't know what kind of mood the black pug was in that day, however. It was a good thing that one of the punishments Abby had subjected Crowley to had been putting him on a – admittedly pretty long – leash even when he was in the backyard on his own. That way he was unable to sneak out of the garden to gather followers to take her down. Not that the brown cat supposed that Abby had caught on to the full extend of the plan.

"I'm impressed," Crowley stated with a slow nod, "Most people sell their own souls, you sold your brother. Looks like your brain is somewhat proportional, after all."

Sam's first impulse was to immediately tell the stupid dog off for making assumptions like that about him, two things kept him from doing that, however. First of all, it had been his stupid joke that had led the pug to believe that he had literally sold Dean in exchange for a pigeon. More importantly however Crowley tended to become very aggressive as soon as someone took any sort of stand against him and they really didn't need the trouble.

"I once considered selling my grandmother for a few crumbs of pie. What does that make me?" Gabriel asked curiously.

The golden bird was enjoying the exchange with the black pug immensely. Other than Sam he was the first other being the pigeon had met ever since he had been wounded. Usually, Gabriel never spent that much time in the company of only one person and while the long-haired cat was interesting, he didn't seem all too willing to share the really interesting details with him. Having the oh so dangerous pug around was a nice change.

"Pretty damn cheap," Crowley replied without missing a beat. The black pug was all for selling other people or anything belonging to other people to further your own case, but selling things under worth was just undignified.

"Look, Crowley, we don't want any trouble. We just want to cross your garden, that's all," Sam explained before the bird could start to talk again. He got the feeling that pigeon and pug might not get along well on the longer run and that was a damn good reason to ensure that there wouldn't be a longer run in the first place. Actually, taking a route that wouldn't lead them past Crowley again on the way back seemed like a pretty good idea, too.

"Very well, moose. You have caught me in a benevolent moment," the black pug allowed, stepping away from the hole to let the cat and his passenger through.

The long-haired cat once more lay down flat on the ground to allow Gabriel to get off his back without having to jump too high. There was no way the two of them would fit through the hole in the fence together, but since it wasn't high up, the pigeon shouldn't have much of a problem getting through on his own without the use of his injured wing. As it turned out, Sam had more troubles squeezing through the hole than Gabriel had hopping, but they both made it to the other side easily enough.

"Moose, huh?" the golden bird commented, the smirk clearly to be heard in his voice, "Damn, I wish you had antlers, that would give me something to hold on to."

The thought had occurred to the pigeon earlier as well, but now that he had had to find a good place to sit on the cat's back once more it was on the forefront of his mind again. Of course, big antlers wouldn't be great for squeezing through tight passages or for balance, but really small ones would be beneficial for sure. Not that any amount of pondering the matter would make the cat spontaneously sprout antlers. Unfortunately.

"I really thought your stupider than a squirrel brother was bad enough," Crowley snorted depreciatingly as they trotted side by side to the other end of the garden, "Since when are you associating with flying rats?"

Sam really wasn't too tempted to go into detail of the story of why he was allowing a bird to ride him like a pony, but him talking would maybe help to keep Gabriel quiet. The long-haired cat had only just opened his mouth to speak when of course the pigeon had to be quicker.

"Hey," the golden bird protested instinctively, before his tone turned more priggish as he added, "I'll console myself with the knowledge that I am an _archangel_-pigeon while you are the equivalent of a pig among dogs."

Under completely different circumstances, let's say them sitting on a high branch or at the very least at the top of the fence, the long-haired cat might have chuckled a little over that insult. As things were they were walking on thin ice and Gabriel had just started to jump up and down, however.

"Shut it, Gabe!" Sam hissed, trying to think of something to say to appease the pug enough so they could continue their journey without any physical fights. Usually, he wouldn't have had that much of a problem with preparing himself to scratch some stupid dog-nose, but he had a passenger to take care of and there was no way that the bird wouldn't fall off if he had to start running at top speed!

"Why?" Gabriel huffed, "I'm not afraid of him!"

Logically, the pigeon knew that he wasn't that high up the food chain, but that had never kept him from feeling very special and in charge. Hey, he was one of God's sons and he could fly! Most of the predators should just try and reach that level of awesome! Even the ones that could fly lacked in the other department and someone like Crowley was lacking in both!

"It never pays to underestimate me," the black pug growled, his beady black eyes suddenly flashing with something very dangerous.

Sam's mind was working overtime trying to figure out a way how they could get out of the situation without either one of them sustaining painful and possibly dangerous bite wounds. For the moment being just keeping on trotting in the slow stride they had set before seemed like the best choice. The moment he started to run, Crowley would start to hunt them and the closer they were to the end of the garden by then the easier it would be to get away.

"Speaking of estimating things. You are overestimating the length of your little leash," Gabriel stated smugly, "It matches that pink bow beautifully, by the way."

The long-haired cat sucked in a breath and started to run at that. As Dean had thoroughly tested in the past, any comment about the things Abby did to Crowley was a sure-fire way to get the pug to lose his temper. Gabriel had just commented on two such things.

To top everything off, the golden bird had been seriously wrong in his estimations, too. The leash was more than long enough to allow Crowley to get to them!

"Gigantor, careful. Hey!" Gabriel cried out, trying to hold on to the cat and failing just moments after the chase had started, "Sam!"

Sam would be lying, if he said that just leaving the pigeon hadn't crossed his mind, but he made the mistake of looking over his shoulder to see the bird's golden eyes look at him pleadingly.

The long-haired cat sighed deeply and then turned around to face Crowley head on. Luckily the pug had gone for the still moving target and hadn't simply gotten his teeth into the bird while he had sitting on the ground dazedly. Sam leapt right over the dog in the last possible second and then ran full speed to pick Gabriel up, taking him between his jaws for the second time that day.

"I… I think I underestimated him," the golden bird allowed after the cat had more or less spat him to the ground on the other side of the fence.

Sam groaned and very carefully knocked Gabriel over the head with his paw while Crowley was still cursing them three ways to Sunday on the other side of the fence.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Keefer, Maddy Love Castiel, kb18142, XxZessxX, Lovely Rain Dancer, CherylB1964 and Riceball-1989 for last chapter's reviews!**  
**

**On another note: **It's my birthday on Monday. Another year older... another year without achieving anything much... BUT I have written about 500.000 words of Supernatural fanfiction. Go me!

**Also**, happy belated birthday to Keefer! Here's hoping you're going to have a great new year of your life!

* * *

**7**

"Hey, I got a feeling like I know this house!" Gabriel chirped happily.

After taking a short rest - Crowley's attack had left them both in the need for a moment to catch their breath - they had continued their journey toward the end of the street. The pigeon hadn't said a word, but he hadn't been quite sure if he would find his way looking at things from the ground instead of the much higher vantage point he usually had, but the feeling of recognition the house had just given him had given him some hope, too.

"Maybe you know Bobby or Rufus," Sam suggested, looking around for the scruffy old cat. He hadn't mentioned that they were once more crossing a garden the long-haired cat knew because there was nothing they had to worry about with the two owners of this territory. Bobby might often act grumpily, but he had a very soft core, especially when it came to Sam and Dean, and Rufus was an old drunk, but he wouldn't harm a fly. At least he wouldn't harm a fly that didn't deserve it.

"I don't think so," Gabriel replied in a thoughtful tone before realization hit him, "Oh, I remember!"

In fact, it wasn't as much the house he knew as it was the old dirty car in the driveway. It was one of those where he had to drop multiple hints before it got cleaned. The golden pigeon didn't get a chance to share the story with his companion before another cat trotted around the corner, however.

"Hey Bobby!" Sam exclaimed, walking up to the old grey cat, bumping their shoulders together affectionately. He was always happy to see Bobby and especially to see that he was doing fine. Being mostly an alley cat - or rather a salvage yard-cat - couldn't be easy at his age, but luckily he got to bunk with his friend Rufus whenever the nights were too cold or when he just felt like having a roof over his head these days.

"It's good to see you, boy," Bobby answered in a warm tone before his eyes fixed on Gabriel, "And I see you brought a friend."

The old cat might have been more surprised than he was, but he had been good friends with a salvage yard dog called Rumsfeld for a very long time, so he wasn't one to judge. Not to mention that the long-haired cat was in dire need of a friend outside of his brother and their human, if someone bothered to ask Bobby on the topic.

"Uh… Yeah, Gabriel and I are trying to get his message delivered. He… uh… hurt his wing in an accident," Sam explained a little awkwardly, "I'm sorry, I know you don't like pigeons that much."

He was pretty sure that the grey cat could look through the half-truth he had just told without problems, but he simply didn't want to say that he might have hurt Gabriel, even if it hadn't happened on purpose. He was grateful that Bobby chose not to comment on that and had also decided to overlook him bringing a pigeon into the garden. The younger cat still had felt like apologizing and he had wanted to let Gabriel know that he should be grateful, too. Of course, the bird chose to look at things another way, however.

"That's racism… speciecism… whatever, it's not okay!" the golden pigeon exclaimed, giving the older cat a hard stare. Being rejected because of who he was was the acceptable alternative to being hated because of what he was! Something about that logic felt a bit screwed up…

"You try watching your friend drag himself out of the house after an awful night just to get another blow, because some stupid pigeon doesn't know the basic rules of hygiene without growing resentful," Bobby replied without making it sound all too accusing, however. He was simply trying to explain his side in this without starting an argument that would be stupid, senseless and quite possibly hurtful for Sam to listen to.

"Oh," Gabriel mumbled, before he promised honestly, "I'll be sure to pass it on to everyone I know. I bet they didn't know… just wanted to make sure the car got a good wash."

Chances were that he didn't have to tell many other pigeons to leave the car alone, anyway. He made a mental note with exclamation marks saying that he had to avoid this special place whenever nature was calling in the future, though.

"That's the main problem between us and you," Bobby stated gruffly, "Different perspectives."

The bird had to say that there was some truth in the grey cat's words. It wasn't that looking at the world from down here was a completely new thing for him, but he had never spent that much time earthbound before. Actually, whenever he had swooped down to pick up a few crumbs here or there or to hear a story he had done so as more of an outsider. The more time he spent riding around on Sam's back the more he felt like he belonged down here as well, however.

"There's also the part where you usually try to eat us," the golden pigeon still had to point out. He tried to keep his tone just as neutral as the old cat had before, however. Not that anyone he knew had ever been eaten by a cat. Not that he knew of, anyway. There had to be a reason why his biological programming had told him to pretend to be dead around the two cats earlier that day, however.

"Not all of us," Bobby objected. He enjoyed fish much more than chicken or any other kind of bird, for example.

Gabriel came very close to pointing out that not every single one of them was taking dumps on Rufus' car either, but he really was the wrong pigeon to make that point. Besides, the cats surely knew that and it didn't look like Bobby had any plans of doing anything more than expressing a not even that great dislike for pigeons, so he didn't comment at all.

"So, Rufus is not doing that great then?" Sam asked a little worriedly. He knew that Bobby's friend – not his human as the older cat always pointed out whenever the topic came up – meant a lot to the cat. The long-haired cat didn't know too much about the troubles the human was having, but he knew that the house, garden and car were as rundown as they were, because of some personal problems Rufus was having. Bobby had also made comments about knocking whiskey bottles over deliberately to give the human a sign that he had had enough before.

"He's keeping it together well enough," the grey cat replied with a shrug, "Will definitely be happier, once your friend spreads the news to leave his car alone. There's enough damn idjits in the neighborhood who give him a hard time, anyway."

Sam nodded gravely. From Castiel's behavior the brown cat knew that sometimes other humans liked to take too much of an interest in the way their neighbors' properties looked like. Not that Cas had ever had troubles in that respect, because he liked his things nice, neat and as symmetrical as possible, but he had spoken about how unkind others could be sometimes in the past.

"I am intrigued," Gabriel suddenly spoke in a conspiratorial voice, looking at Bobby with a certain glint in his eyes, "Who are those _idjits_ and most importantly, what do their cars look like?"

* * *

"Dean!" Castiel called from downstairs which let the short-haired cat know that Balthazar had left. The blue-eyed human knew better than to get the cat to come back as long as his brother was still there, if he had been the reason Dean had taken his leave, anyway.

"Balthazar is a real son of a bitch," the blonde cat voiced his thought randomly, before he amended, "She couldn't have been a totally bad bitch, though. Cas came from her, too."

Benny gave a crooked grin at that, listening to the human calling for Dean a couple more times before he spread his wings and stretched as a sign that he was just about ready to take off, anyway. The bat knew that the feline would never admit how much he wished to return to his pet human, but since they were friends he was polite enough not to mention it and to give Dean the chance to go back downstairs.

"I'll report back as soon as I see your brother," Benny promised in the southern drawl he always seemed to speak with. Okay, he'd try to find a few big, fat bugs on the way too, but Dean surely knew that. Other than that he didn't intend to let anything keep him from telling his friend what exactly his younger brother was up to as soon as possible, however.

"You're a real friend," the blonde cat stated appreciatively, nodding toward the bat before his ears turned toward the sound of Castiel calling for him yet again automatically, "I better let Cas know that I haven't left him. I'm telling you, dude, humans can be so needy."

Benny laughed even as he took off. Dean only waited for a few moments longer before he hurried downstairs as quickly as he could.

"There you are," the blue-eyed human sighed relieved and picked his cat up when he came running toward him.

The blonde cat gave Castiel his best 'I'm sorry, so you can't be mad at me' eyes and nudged the human's chin with his head a few times for good measure. The blue-eyed man was a total sucker for things like that and Dean would exploit it for all it was worth. If he felt pretty good when Cas held him close and stroked his fur in turn, that was only fair. He was caring for the human every single day, after all.

"I wonder where your brother is," Castiel stated with a frown a little time later.

Dean huffed out a breath and struggled a little to let the human know that he wanted to be set down again. He then quickly ran to collect his favorite toy. He was meant to distract Cas after all and it never failed to catch his attention when the blonde cat let the black car drive around the living room.

Sam better be damn grateful, he was working his ass off for him here! Oh, the things a good and loving big brother had to do at times!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Keefer, Maddy Love Castiel, kb18142, CherylB1964, Lovely Rain Dancer, XxZessxX and Riceball-1989 for last chapter's reviews!

To all my other readers I'd like to say thank you as well... maybe some of you can find a minute to leave me a line some time, too.

* * *

**8**

"Hey, Gabriel," Sam cleared his throat, trotting toward the crossroads that marked the end of their street, "I… uh… thanks for… I mean, you're probably one of the pigeons who are giving Rufus troubles, but thanks for… it was nice how you promised to help."

Since it looked like the golden pigeon was a bit confused about common behavioral rules, the long-haired cat had decided to try and give him positive reinforcement whenever he did something appropriate for a change. In theory, praising the things that went right should be easier and much nicer than complaining and arguing about those that didn't. Given their – admittedly rather short – history, Sam wasn't quite sure how long he would be able to go through with it, however.

"What can I say? I'm a nice guy," Gabriel chirped, pleasant surprise obvious in his tone. He also had to admit that he had felt a little bad about apparently picking on at least one human who probably really didn't deserve it. Bobby hadn't exactly given him a detailed description of the people who were mean to that Rufus character, but the bird was sure that some simple research should point him toward a few new and more acceptable public toilets.

"Yeah, I'm starting to believe that, too," Sam agreed awkwardly. The cat hadn't exactly chosen to start liking the pigeon, but he had to say that his passenger was growing on him. Maybe it was just about the fact that the brown cat couldn't remember ever spending this much time on end with somebody other than his brother, at least not without Dean being around regularly as well. Whatever it was, having the bird around wasn't quite as bad as he had recently believed and he might not even mind seeing him more often in the future.

"Besides, I guess he was right about the perspective thing," Gabriel added thoughtfully, pressing a bit closer to the cat's back instinctively, "And I'd like to look through your eyes for a while now that I have the chance."

Sam huffed out a short laugh. The cat really doubted that the pigeon could ever really look through his eyes and it was questionable that he would even want to, if he had more of an insight of how the long-haired cat saw some things. Then again, the golden bird basically was saying that he wanted to learn and improve and that was something Sam could understand and approve of.

"Is looking over my shoulder okay, too?" the brown cat finally replied.

They had reached the end of the street and needed new directions, so Sam saw down careful not to throw the pigeon off his back, waiting for him to say where to go next.

"With you, I'll take what I can get, Gigantor," Gabriel stated seriously, rubbing the side of his head against the back of the cat's head affectionately for a moment before he hopped off his back to look at their surroundings.

The golden bird definitely knew the street and he could have found his way to his destination blind usually… when he was flying, that was. The issue about earthbound and flying beings having different perspectives on things didn't stop at their view of life at a philosophical level, it was a pretty damn practical problem, as well.

"Do you see anything you recognize?" Sam asked after watching the pigeon hop around on the ground, looking into every direction for a while. The cat had the sinking feeling that he wasn't going to like the answer, however.

What were they going to do if Gabriel couldn't find his way? Okay, the pigeon should just spit out the directions back to his home instead and they'd go there. Sure, it'd suck to abandon the mission, but they couldn't just run around in circles forever. The real problem would start, if the golden bird couldn't lead the way back to his father either.

"Other than you? Not really," Gabriel groaned before he kicked the ground and yelled, "Pigeon-shit!"

Sam blinked a few times, perplexed. He wasn't all that surprised that Gabriel could get frustrated to the point of cursing. The swearword the pigeon had used had caught the cat unprepared, however.

"What?" the pigeon asked, calming down again surprisingly quickly, "You think it's any more pleasant to us than it is to you? Have you ever tried resting on a statue just to find that some of your own kind…"

The golden bird shuddered with the thought but left the statement hanging unfinished. He had made his point clear, anyway.

Sam shook his head with a sigh and sat down to think their situation through. If Gabriel didn't know the way to go, he'd have to just tell him where his human lived, so he could drop him off there. Then again, the pigeon was stubborn and not very logical, so he might insist on running around until they found the right way. To be honest though, at this point the long-haired cat didn't want to just abandon their mission, either.

"Could you tell me what to look for, if I climbed up that tree?" the brown cat asked, eyeing the big fir tree not too far away from them. It wouldn't be exactly like flying, but maybe it would be close enough to be useful.

"Yes! You're brilliant, Gigantor!" Gabriel exclaimed happily, wracking his brain to come up with some description of things that would make sense to the cat, too. The pull of directions wouldn't mean anything to his feline companion and since he himself didn't feel it from the ground either, it wasn't helpful, anyway. There were however certain landmarks that he was pretty sure should be visible from the tree. "Look for a steeple – one that's not so far away. The house is pink, maybe you can even see that."

Sam nodded seriously and began to climb up the tree. Once he was up far enough to look over the roofs of the houses he started to look around more seriously. There was no use getting up any higher than absolutely necessary and getting stuck! He remembered all too well how undignified it had been when Castiel had had to get the long ladder and get Dean off the very top of the chimney. He so wasn't going to repeat his older brother's mistakes! Not to mention that the blonde cat had sworn never to go through that again, either. He was sticking to things much closer to the ground these days.

"I see it!" Sam called down the tree a few moments later. He might have some troubles with his color vision, but the steeple was clearly visible and the house the pigeon had been talking about wasn't only pink but bright pink. The brown cat was pretty sure that even completely color blind beings would have been able to identify that building as pink!

The long-haired cat jumped from branch to branch on his way back to the ground quite gracefully until he made the mistake of looking toward Gabriel. He completely lost his focus when he spotted the bat sitting next to the pigeon and thus also lost his footing and took a tumble down the last few feet.

"I'll give you a 3.5, would have given you more, if you hadn't messed up the landing," the golden bird commented, looking the cat over worriedly, however. He didn't want Sam to get hurt in any way and it wasn't all about needing him to get around, either.

"Sam," Benny greeted the cat, kindly ignoring the way Sam had just fallen off the tree, "Dean asked me to find you."

The brown cat got back to his feet very quickly, but that didn't exactly remove the embarrassment he felt all too clearly. Even if the bat didn't comment, Sam still knew that he had seen it, after all.

"Uhu," the long-haired cat replied, sitting down next to Gabriel, which also left more space between him and Benny completely coincidentally.

"He was wondering when you'd be back home," the bat explained, "Your little friend tells me that you'll return some time tomorrow."

Benny had only hunted down enough bugs to appease the worst of his hunger before he had switched to looking for the orange-brown cat and the pigeon Dean had told him about. It had been quite obvious that hearing of his younger brother's whereabouts was important to his friend and he could still look for bugs once he was back on the attic. Dean's human might also appreciate that, even if Castiel would never get to know that Benny was even there, if it was for him.

Sam grunted noncommittally, not quite looking at the bat. So, the pigeon estimated that they had half their journey behind them. That was good to know. Going back might go faster, anyway. They'd already know their way, after all.

"I better leave you two to it then," Benny decided, getting ready for take-off again. He could accept – and to some extent understand – that the long-haired cat had problems with him, but that didn't mean that he had to stick around to be shown the cold shoulder any longer than necessary.

"Yeah, you do that," Gabriel commented in a suddenly hostile tone, adding the worst insult used among pigeons and other small birds for good measure, "You eagle-beaked son of a falcon!"

Benny had been ready to just leave, but the pigeon's last words made him stop in his tracks. They had gotten along quite well, exchanging some pleasantries before Sam had been back on the ground earlier. The bird's changed attitude had caught the bat by surprise, so he simply had to ask, "Where did that come from?"

"I didn't know that _we_ don't like you before," Gabriel shrugged, nearly apologetically, not that he would let his feline companion see that. He was trying to build up stronger companionship between them by developing a hate against a common enemy, after all. The bat was just unlucky enough to be the available scapegoat, really.

"And people call _me_ a rat with wings!" the golden pigeon called after Benny when the bat finally took flight. At least it looked like he wasn't taking it too hard, otherwise Gabriel might have had to feel a little bad. Then again, he was trying to get on Sam's good side and that was most important, anyway.

"What the hell, Gabriel?" Sam asked, looking nearly scandalized at the bird's behavior. He lay down to allow the pigeon to get back onto his back all the same, however.

"_We_ obviously don't like him," Gabriel answered, trying to find the sitting position he had had before again. It wasn't that easy to get comfortable this close to the cat's shoulder blades, but he had found a good spot before, so he wanted to get back to it.

"What do you mean 'we'?" the long-haired cat snorted, "Benny is a nice guy and only did what Dean asked him for!"

"But… but… but… you were acting like you hate him!" the golden pigeon exclaimed, genuinely surprised. He was beginning to suspect that his feline companion had his moments of borderline insanity as well. Strangely enough that only made Sam more interesting to him, however.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," the brown cat replied, trotting into the direction of the pink house he had seen earlier.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Keefer, Maddy Love Castiel, Lovely Rain Dancer, CherylB1964, FlowerChild13, XxZessxX and Jeanny for last chapter's reviews!

* * *

**9**

"So, you made friends with a bug and Benny ate him?" Gabriel broke the silence that had fallen between them once Sam had started to trot into the direction of the pink house he had spotted from the tree.

Since the pigeon had more or less lost his job as navigator he had had a lot of time to think about the encounter with the bat they had had before. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made, however. The long-haired cat hadn't given him any reason to believe that he was the sort of being who'd simply hate someone for the sake of hating them, so there had to be something more behind his dislike of Benny. Gabriel was determined to solve that mystery!

"What? No," Sam replied a little distractedly as he made sure that it was save for them to cross the street. Night was falling and most people already were at their homes, so it wasn't quite the impossible task, but he had to take into account that he couldn't simply sprint the rest of the way, if a vehicle showed up after all.

"Benny learned a horrible and embarrassing secret about you and told all his batty friends?" Gabriel went on guessing.

"No," the brown cat snorted. He hoped that answering monosyllabically would be enough of a hint to the golden bird to leave the topic alone, but of course he should have known better by then.

"Come on, how bad could it have been? I mean, you never gave me the sort of attitude you give him and I've done a few pretty bad things!" the pigeon pointed out, tightening his talons around the strands of the cat's hair he could reach as soon as he fully realized what he had just said. There was no chance that he wouldn't be sent flying, if the cat really wanted to shake him off, but as long as he didn't try too hard he should be able to hold on.

"Gee, if you put it like that…" Sam retorted with a chuckle. He finally took mercy with the pigeon and decided to give him his input to the topic, "Benny is Dean's friend, just like Cas is Dean's friend, that's all."

Gabriel was silent for a few moments after that, but the brown cat didn't believe for a second that that meant he was off the hook. He was quite right about that, too.

"Oh, I get it," the golden bird nodded to himself contently.

"Good, so we can stop talking-" Sam tried to find an end to their talk, so they could discuss the weather or the merits of pie crumbs or something like that instead. Of course, he shouldn't be that lucky.

"You're jealous!" Gabriel chirped up before the cat had even stopped talking.

The long-haired cat fell into stunned silence and stopped walking for a moment while he tried to progress what his companion had just thrown at him. He didn't get a chance to voice how ridiculous that claim was before the bird spoke again, however.

"Your big brother has two friends and you show at least one of them the cold shoulder," the pigeon explained, "The logical deduction from that is that you're jealous."

"I'm not!" Sam protested immediately, but a little too weakly to come across as completely sincere.

"Okay," Gabriel replied, "But?"

Now if the cat really wasn't jealous of Benny in some way, then there had to be something else and if he wanted to disprove the claim that he was jealous, he'd have to spill the beans finally! The pigeon hadn't actually planned to force the truth out of the long-haired cat like that, but he was quite pleased with them having reached that point.

"You just can't leave it be, can you?" Sam huffed.

"No, so you can talk now, or you can talk after I bother you some more," Gabriel confirmed mercilessly. The brown cat didn't seem to be upset with him yet, so it felt pretty safe to press on a bit more.

"I… okay, we came from… actually, we came from the suburbs…" the long-haired cat started to speak, reluctance clearly to be heard in his tone, "Then dad moved us to the forest and… I wanted all this, okay? I wanted back to a human town and to live in a house, have other more domesticated beings around, make friends and all that stuff. Dean never did… not like I did, anyway…"

"And now you're taking the backseat while Dean-o cruises up and down friendship-lane," Gabriel interrupted, nodding thoughtfully. A little resentment toward the bat, who was one of Dean's friends, was understandable under the circumstances, the pigeon figured. Sam didn't only have to watch as his brother spent time with his friend, he also had to share his brother with said friend, after all.

"Uh… maybe… sort of… but you don't understand," Sam admitted, before he backpedalled immediately, "Dean deserves having all the friends he wants to have. He really does!"

It wasn't that he didn't want Dean to be happy and to have Cas and Benny and whoever else he wanted to have in his life. It was more that looking at his brother socializing made Sam realize that he was pretty lonely sometimes. And yes, admittedly, Benny didn't deserve the treatment he got, but it wasn't like Sam had really analyzed these things before. He could still change a bit in the future!

"Didn't say he doesn't. Even though, looking at it realistically, the bastard totally broke my wing," Gabriel shot back, huffing. He softened his voice considerably before he spoke on, though. "You deserve friends too, you know?"

"Yeah, right," the brown cat snorted automatically. He realized too late that he had just opened himself wide for another talk he didn't want to have, but maybe he could still close that door again before it was too late.

"Geez, cats are supposed to be full of themselves, not full of self-hate!" the pigeon commented, shaking his head.

"I'm one of a kind," Sam replied curtly, determined not to get into a discussion about his general character now. There had to be other things they could speak about!

"Yes, you are," Gabriel agreed, "And there's no need to be a grumpy emo-kitty about it."

The long-haired cat had to admit that he was pretty surprised when the golden pigeon stopped speaking at that point and rubbed his head and neck against the back of Sam's head affectionately instead. He also had to say that the contact didn't bother him in the slightest. He actually thought that it was a nice and comforting gesture.

"So, you were feral cats once?" the bird asked a question that should lead them to another topic. He wasn't exactly sure, if it would be any better, but he had to try and since Sam obviously lacked friends and people to talk to, he might even appreciate the chance to share his backstory now that he knew – or should know – that Gabriel wanted to be his friend.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess we were," Sam answered.

They were able to use the sidewalk since no people and especially no humans with their dogs were in sight and were making good progress without any bigger obstacles in their way. Besides, the cat had only just begun to really warm up to the pigeon and so he didn't mind the thought of letting him know a few things quite as much as he did before anymore.

"That's cool," Gabriel chirped encouragingly.  
"No, it really isn't," Sam sighed, "Is there any use saying that I don't want to talk about it?"

In fact, he didn't mind the prospect of giving Gabriel a rundown of the events that had led to Dean and him living with Castiel. Looking at the way all their previous talks had gone, he felt that some token protest was expected, however.

"Nope," the pigeon shot back, popping the p for all it was worth, "There's so much you don't wanna talk about, we'd never talk about anything, if I'd listen to you!"

It actually came as a surprise to Gabriel that the cat seemed to agree with him. It looked like they were finally getting somewhere and maybe by the end of their journey Sam wouldn't even mind the prospect of the pigeon visiting him again regularly anymore!

"I was only just old enough for sort of solid food when dad moved us to the forest," the long-haired cat started to speak, "He wanted to… He was hunting the hawk that killed mom."

Sam didn't remember their mother at all, but Dean had told him that she had been very loving and caring toward them and even though it had made the older cat very uncomfortable he had also told his younger brother that the hawk had gotten to her when she had tried to take Sam to a save place.

It nearly scared the brown cat a little how close he had been to share all those details with Gabriel and how he could imagine doing exactly that at a later point in time.

"Hunting a hawk? Your dad's a badass! Totally insane, but a badass," the golden bird whistled appreciatory.

Gabriel might have never seen a hawk up close and personal, but the fear of them was ingrained in his very DNA just as much as his fear of cats. Alright, maybe that wasn't the best comparison he could have come up with. Hawks were dangerous and scary sons of bitches was what he had meant to say.

"I… I guess that's a pretty good description of his character," Sam agreed. Unfortunately, their father had been more of a badass than their father, however. Dean had only been a little older than Sam when he had had to hunt small animals for them and then bite them into pieces small enough for his brother to eat while their dad had been on his own mission, after all.

"Oh good, I nearly feared that I just offended you again accidentally," Gabriel sighed relieved. The cat might have taken offense at his father being called insane, after all.

"You never think before you speak, do you?" the long-haired cat chuckled. He might have thought that exactly that was infuriating before and he didn't doubt that he would find it annoying again ever so often in the future, but that very moment he found it nearly endearing.

"I think while and after I speak," Gabriel clarified, poking the cat in the shoulder ever so slightly for even implying that it was any different, "Most people don't even do that!"

"You're one of a kind, too," Sam stated in a fond tone.

He was quite pleased that Gabriel cuddled up against him once again because of his statement, too. He would have given the pigeon an affectionate lick or a slight nudge with his head, if he had been in a position to do so, anyway.

"Does that mean you like me enough to tell me how you and your brother became lap-cats?" the bird wanted to know a few moments later.

Sam didn't really have to think about that before he agreed. "Okay, fine."


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, CherylB1986, Maddy Love Castiel, XxZessxX, Kershaw, Keefer, kb18142 and Riceball-1989 for last chapter's reviews!

I love you all and can't thank you enough for - regularly - taking the time to review!

* * *

**10**

"Know what, Cas?" the blonde cat sighed contently, nosing along the human's jaw, "You always smell like burgers and pie."

It had been a lot of work to make sure that Castiel didn't go on a useless search for Sam, but the moment the human had double checked the lock on the front door and had walked upstairs Dean had known that he had won. Castiel was getting ready to go to bed which would give the brown cat around eight more hours during which he wouldn't be missed. Other than Dean, Sam hardly ever went to sleep in the same bed as their human, after all.

"Just between the two of us, you make it too easy to love you," Dean finished, waiting for the blue-eyed man to lift the blanket so he could get to his favorite sleeping spot cuddled up to Castiel's side with only his head poking out of the blanket. Of course, he would have never made his last statement, if Sam had been around to hear it, or if Castiel could understand what exactly his content purring meant and he would deny ever having said such a thing, if anybody accused him of it. In fact, it never had happened and that was the end of it!

Then again, he might as well use the one chance he had when nobody was around to overhear it to say one more thing that had been on his mind basically ever since they had moved in with Castiel.

"I know it hurt when you fell, but I'm still glad you did," Dean purred, stretching his paw toward the human's neck for a moment before he settled back into the crook of his arm, "How else would we have ever met?"

The blue-eyed man cocked his head curiously and scratched the blonde cat behind the ears for some time before he reached out to turn the light on the bedside table off. Balthazar could call him crazy as much as he wanted, but Castiel was sure that he had a special bond with his cat. Actually, he had a special bond with both his cats, but he and Dean had the more profound one.

"Good night, Dean," the blue-eyed man sighed, scratching the cat's back softly for a few more moments.

The blonde cat listened to the human's breaths evening out as he drifted off to sleep. Unfortunately that meant that the petting session had come to an end as well. Oh well, being this close to Castiel was still warm and comfy. Realistically, Dean still had some time until Benny returned, so he could stay where he was and snooze a little, as well.

"Good night, Cas," the cat hummed contently, closing his eyes.

Dean was out like a light within moments, dreaming of the first time he had ever met his human.

* * *

Their father's hunt for the hawk that had killed their mother had led them to a part of the forest that was closer to civilization that time. John, of course, had left them on their own as soon as he had found a spot he had deemed suitable to tell them to stick around until he came back, however.

Being close to parts of the woods where hikers went as well always had had its good and bad sides. On the negative side, there had been more humans to hide from, not to mention the dogs some of them liked to bring along. On the plus side, more humans had always meant better options for food. They'd always either leave something behind, or – when they, read Dean, had felt particularly adventurous – they had been able to look through unsupervised picnic baskets and backpacks.

"Hey Sammy, check this out!" the blonde cat had called after catching sight of a very promising pair of rucksacks. The humans they had belonged to had been in sight, but they had for some strange reason decided to climb up the big rocks, so getting back to their things would have taken them a good long while, even if they had seen what was happening.

"If you like human stuff so much, why can't we just go live with them?" Sam had whined, trotting toward his older brother, his 'my life sucks' attitude all too clearly to be read from the way he moved. Adolescence hadn't been very kind to the fluffy, brown kitten who had always wanted to be just like his bigger brother.

"For that you won't get any of the loot, bitch," Dean had shot back without missing a beat. There had never been any sense in getting into a discussion about any facts of their lives with his brother. Besides, he had discovered that one of the humans had brought a cheeseburger for lunch and he hadn't wanted to share that with Sam, anyway.

"That can't be healthy," the long-haired cat had sneered, keeping his distance for the moment being. He really hadn't been hungry enough to go all crazy over a… whatever it was Dean had found.

The 'Who cares?' had been on the tip of the older cat's tongue already, but he had never gotten to voice his thoughts before a relatively loud 'thud' announced the arrival of one of the humans the backpacks belonged to. Lucky for them, the human hadn't exactly planned to get back to the ground quite this quickly, so he simply lay on the mossy ground, looking like he was on the verge of passing out.

Dean, of course, hadn't treated the situation with the sort of gravity it would have deserved.

"Look at me, dude!" the blonde cat had grinned from ear to ear, sitting in the middle of the dark-haired man's chest, "I totally slew a human!"

"More like you parked your butt on one," Sam had snorted, looking around nervously. There had been a second human as well and he couldn't be that far away, after all.

If Dean had had one more moment he would have come up with a snarky reply, but instead the human's deep blue eyes had demanded all his attention as they had been fixed on him at the time. The cat couldn't have explained it if his life had depended on him, but he had felt strangely grateful that the man had apparently not been harmed too seriously that moment.

"Cassy! Cassy! Are you okay?" Balthazar had yelled, hurrying to get to his fallen brother, which was the exact moment when both cats hightailed it back into the bushes and away from both humans.

"I believe so," Castiel had mumbled, looking after the two felines.

* * *

"Cas came back a couple of times after that," Sam finished his speech, realizing that Gabriel had never been quiet for this long ever since he had first opened his beak to talk to the cat, "He always brought cheeseburgers and… let's just say Dean couldn't resist forever and I didn't really want to let that chance pass to begin with."

The long-haired cat had in fact tried to push his brother toward the human and the burgers he had been offering whenever he had had the chance to do so subtly. Granted, he could have done without the short car-ride in that basket, but getting to their new home had been worth it, in the end.

No matter how much and how often Dean protested against enjoying the luxuries of being domesticated, they both agreed that they didn't regret having taken Castiel as their human.

"What about your dad?" Gabriel asked curiously. The last he had heard of that cat had been that he had left for the hunt, after all. He once again realized too late that his question most likely would bring up a bad topic, however. Oh well, the golden bird was pretty sure that Sam was past the point where he'd try to shake him off his back for saying something stupid.

"He'd been gone for weeks at that point," the brown cat replied reluctantly, "Never saw him again."

In fact, the absence of their father had been the main reason why they had taken weeks to allow Castiel to take them back to his home with him. Dean had been extremely reluctant to simply leave without a chance of letting John know where they were going, but in the end the pull the blonde cat had felt toward the blue-eyed man had been stronger than his already fading hopes that their father was going to return at all that time around.

"Wow," Gabriel commented. The entire story was pretty damn interesting and – to tell the truth – better than he had expected. Of course, it had a tragic touch, but it anything that mad it even better.

"Hey, it's not like _we_ abandoned _him_!" Sam protested, getting defensive immediately.

"Geez, Gigantor, I didn't even think that!" the pigeon insisted, pecking the back of the long-haired cat's head carefully. His companion should better get it into that thick skull of his that Gabriel wasn't all that judgmental and that he was on Sam's side, anyway.

"Hey, we found the right street! I know all these houses!" the golden bird suddenly chirped before they could get deeper into the topic they had been talking about. It probably was for the best that way, too.

"Looks like most of the humans went to bed already," Sam observed, looking at the dark windows all around them, "We'll probably have to wait 'til morning."

One of the things the brown cat had learned ever since they had returned to civilization had been what a doorbell was and he was pretty sure he could have used one, if he had to. He wasn't too tempted to test that skill, however. Sleepy humans often were grumpy and they'd have to rest either before or after delivering the message, anyway. So returning home before morning was out of the question, no matter what.

"That's okay, I could go for some shut-eye anyway," Gabriel unknowingly agreed with at least one part of the long-haired cat's thought process.

Sam continued to trot toward the pink house he could see pretty clearly already, looking for a good spot to spend the night on the way. It couldn't be out in the open, obviously. Being trapped in a place that only had one possible entrance didn't sound like much of a good idea either, though.

In the end, he settled for walking into one of the little plastic houses he had seen in gardens in his own neighborhood as well. Nobody ever was in those over night and while they usually lacked the proper furniture a real house had, they offered shelter.

"Bet you've never slept with a pigeon before," the golden bird suddenly laughed, waiting for Sam to settle down before he nestled into the spot between the cat's tail and belly. It was warm and comfy and the way the cat unrolled just enough to make space for him let him know that sharing body warmth was okay with his friend, too.

"Like you've slept with a cat before," the brown cat snorted, amusement apparent in his voice. It wasn't like birds and cats usually shared their sleeping space.

"Spiked penises are a bit of a turn-off," Gabriel shot back, making perfectly clear that his mind had been in the gutter the entire time. Really, Sam shouldn't have been surprised by that, but the look on his face was priceless enough that the pigeon just had to chuckle.

"Gabriel! I didn't-" the long-haired cat started to protest or clarify. He wasn't completely sure what he was trying to achieve himself, to be honest.  
"Shh, Samsquatch, I'm trying to sleep!" Gabriel still chuckled, tucking his beak under his wing and that was the end of that.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, kb18142, CherylB1964, Keefer and XxZessxX for last chapter's reviews!

* * *

**11**

Gabriel woke up early the next morning. The sun couldn't have been up for long and Sam was still sleeping peacefully, breathing steadily and generally looking adorable. The call of nature that had woken the golden bird up demanded to be answered, however.

The pigeon carefully extracted himself from the loose grip the cat had had on him during the night, trying not to wake his companion up just yet. He knew that cats needed a lot of sleep and he didn't want Sam to be grumpy again. He preferred the long-haired cat when he was happier and more open, after all.

Hopping out of the plastic play-house Gabriel took a look at his surroundings. Their destination was just across the street which meant that they were in an awesomely good position to accomplish their mission without losing much more time. Speaking of not losing more time, he really needed to find a good place to follow nature's call quickly, too.

"Eureka!" the golden bird chirped happily when his eyes fell on the car in the driveway of the house they had spent the night at. It wasn't particularly dirty, but it would have to do.

It was only a minute later that Sam was woken up abruptly, as well.

"Kitty!" a very young voice, belonging to a little blonde girl, yelled.

The brown cat jumped to his feet immediately, trying to assess the situation. Gabriel was nowhere in sight, instead a young human with crazy eyes, if you asked Sam anyway, was there. The long-haired cat barely got enough time to check the play-house they had slept in over for any signs of his pigeon friend once more before he had to find a way to get away from the grabbing hands of the girl.

Sam wasn't the kind of cat who liked to scratch or bite all that much, he hardly ever hissed to begin with, but in this case he had to give the kid a fair warning to stay away from him. Usually, he would have given her a chance to show him that she was friendly first, but something about her just screamed bad news, so he went for the hissing immediately.

Unfortunately, the brat was completely unimpressed and only redoubled her efforts to get her hands on him, however.

"Hey! That hurts, you brat!" Sam all but screamed when his efforts to run around her to get out of the house only gave her the chance to grab his tail and try to hold him back. The brown cat threw another hissy fit, but ignored the pain and finally yanked himself free, escaping outside.

"Lilith, darling, don't bother the cats again!" a female adult's voice could be heard from the family's home, making Sam hope that the kid would listen to her mother and stop chasing after him. He shouldn't be that lucky, however.

"I'm just playing!" Lilith yelled back, running after the long-haired cat as fast as she could.

"Okay," the adult answered and that was the last she had to say to the topic.

The brown cat wouldn't pretend that he knew a lot about the raising of human children, but he was pretty sure that the woman was doing something wrong. Hell, Castiel's nephew Alfie was much better behaved around animals and would never call this playing! Of course, Rachel was a very strict woman who disapproved of all the things Castiel allowed his cats to do, so that might explain that.

"Gabriel!" Sam called urgently, hoping that the pigeon was somewhere nearby and could give him a sign. As soon as he had picked up his winged companion he would be able to find a strategy to really flee from this place. As things were he could only run in circles, trying to spot his friend.

"Down here, Sam!" Gabriel replied. He hadn't noticed that his feline companion was in trouble immediately, but now that he saw what was going on, he really wanted to help him out, too.

It might work in their favor that he had been in a hurry earlier and had never made it on top of the car, but had chosen to stay underneath it instead. The kid might be small, but she wasn't that small!

The long-haired cat immediately ran into the direction of the car and dove under it which got him away from Lilith for the moment at least.

"What are you doing here?" Sam huffed, looking at the golden bird with narrowed eyes, "I was worried when you were just gone!"

The pigeon looked a little too pleased because of the cat's statement, moving closer to his friend to rub his head against the cat's cheek affectionately. They had gone from Sam allowing Gabriel to ride on his back out of some sense of guilt to the cat honestly caring for him in a day and that clearly was a good sign.

"I might have accidentally conditioned myself to only be able to go in the presence of a car," the golden bird admitted a little meekly, "And I really didn't want to wake you up for that. You looked like a peaceful, gigantic, furry baby in your sleep."

It was then that the first few pebbles were being thrown into their general direction. Lilith apparently was very unsatisfied with the cat being out of her reach and was trying to find ways of getting him to come out again.

"That kid has issues," Gabriel commented in a nearly amused tone that immediately changed to outrage when one of the pebbles hit him in the side though, "Someone could lose an eye like this, you punk!"

Sam doubted that Lilith would have been impressed by that, even if she could have understood what the pigeon had just yelled at her. As uncomfortable as being bombarded with pebbles was, the long-haired cat tried to ignore it in favor of coming up with an escape plan. For once coincidence seemed to be on their side, however.

"Hey, is that the woman the message is for?" he asked, looking toward the door of the pink house that had only just been opened to reveal a woman in a bathrobe and with rollers in her hair, apparently about to get her mail inside.

Gabriel hardly had enough time to confirm that she was indeed the recipient of the message he was carrying before Sam had already grabbed him with his teeth once more and was racing across the street toward what he hoped would be their safe haven.

There was some screaming, first from the little girl, then from the woman and more hurried footsteps, but the long-haired cat didn't pay any attention to that and simply passed the adult right by, entering through the still open door and hiding behind the couch in the living room with Gabriel until they could be sure that Lilith wasn't following them anymore.

"Good thinking, Samsquatch," the pigeon complimented his feline friend, sitting between the cat's front paws while they were hoping and waiting, "But I really prefer riding on your back, you know?"

The bird had to give the cat credit for grabbing him as gently as he had, however. In fact, the last two times he had been carried around between Sam's jaws hadn't hurt in the least and the feline had assumed that he was dead the first time, so he had an excuse for being a little rough with him then.

Sam couldn't help snorting at that, "Know what, Gabe? Next time we're hunted by a crazy kid from hell, you'll carry my ass to safety!"

* * *

Dean had gotten up in the middle of the night to once more meet Benny at the attic. The blonde cat had of course expected no less of his friend, but Benny had returned quickly and had been successful in his mission. Even though he wouldn't have admitted it, hearing that Sam was well on his way and expected to be back within the day made Dean feel a lot better, as well. The only problem was that it looked like his younger brother might come back too late. Castiel had started to look for the younger cat right after he had woken up that morning, after all.

The blonde cat had managed to distract him for a while by demanding breakfast and then pretending that the usual cat-food breakfast didn't do that day. He had gotten the human to go and cut up some ham and bacon for him instead which had taken up another few minutes. Of course, Dean had then taken one more for the team and was now eating the new breakfast. Castiel might have gotten worried that he was sick if he hadn't, after all.

Oh the things he was willing to do only to make sure that his little brother didn't get in trouble and that their human was staying content and unworried!

"Aren't you missing your brother?" the blue-eyed human asked with a slight frown. His two cats usually were more or less inseparable. At least, they were spending most of their time being in the same room, even if they were doing different things. For all he knew Sam had been missing all night and Dean didn't seem to mind in the least, however. Something about that really rubbed him in the wrong way, but like many other things about his two feline companions this was likely to stay a mystery to him.

"Yeah, not really," the blonde cat replied, knowing full well that the human didn't understand him, but some sort of reply had been expected from him he was sure, "I know where the long-haired pussy went. Too bad I can't tell you, Cas."

The human cocked his head, uselessly trying to figure out what exactly Dean had just tried to tell him, but there simply was no way he could be sure that any interpretation he could come up with would be even close to the truth. No matter what Balthazar – and Rachel for that matter – thought, he wasn't crazy enough to think that he really could speak to his cats. If anything he was good at reading the signs they were giving him, usually.

"I suggest we go out and look for him after breakfast," Castiel said out loud, blinking in confusion when the blonde cat nearly immediately started to eat more slowly. Of course, that could only be a figment of his imagination. It had to be a figment of his imagination! Maybe he was spending too much time alone with his cats, after all.

So, Dean finally got to make a real sacrifice for his brother. Having to eat ham and bacon slowly wasn't exactly his style, after all. Sam better kiss his feet for this once he returned!


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: **Thanks to much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, kb18142, CherylB1964, Maddy Love Castiel and ImagineYourself64 for last chapter's reviews!

So, Sam and Gabriel are nearing the end of their journey. All in all this story is going to have 15 chapters. Looking at the dwindling number of readers that's probably for the best, too.

Also, Happy Birthday to Larkafree, you wonderful person you! ;-)

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**12**

"Okay, you go out there and give her the message," Sam whispered after the noise outside had died down a little. It seemed like a good guess that the woman in the bathrobe would return inside any minute, especially since Lilith was still wreaking havoc outside. The sooner the pigeon got rid of his message, the sooner they could go back home, hopefully avoiding all the people that had given them troubles before!

"Why me?" Gabriel whined, trying to look pitiful. After all the excitement they had already gone through that day he didn't exactly feel like adding something more to the list. Sure, Becky wasn't a bad human or anything, but she always fussed about him and he had the feeling that that'd be even worse that time.

"Uh… because you are carrying the thing?" the long-haired cat retorted, looking at the golden bird incredulously. He really hadn't thought that he would have to explain the mechanics of delivering messages to the messenger pigeon, but after everything that had already happened he probably should have expected it.

"Yeah, sure, but I thought you were going to come with me!" Gabriel huffed. Granted, he generally delivered his messages on his own, but now that he had Sam with him already he had expected that the cat would see this through with him to the end.

"Think, Gabriel, what would it look like, if I was directly behind you?" the brown cat argued, "I don't want anyone to whack me over the head with a broom!"

He was pretty sure that they'd have a hard time making the human or any human for that matter see that they had become friends and that Sam wasn't trying to hurt or eat Gabriel. The two of them making their entrance together would be a sure-fire way to make the human panic and let her think that she had to rescue the bird, too.

"I didn't know that people actually did that," the pigeon pondered, trying to stall as much as he could. It was true, however. Outside of cartoons he hadn't thought that humans chased anything down with brooms anymore, but the cat would probably know about that better than he did.

"Gabe," Sam sighed. He wasn't so sure about his little companion's preferences anymore, but he really wanted to get home within a reasonable span of time. He also wanted to spend more time with Gabriel, of course, but they could still do that after they both made sure that their humans knew that they were okay. Besides, the long-haired cat feared that his brother would rip him a new one for staying away too long already, anyway.

"Okay, fine. I'll go, I'll go," Gabriel relented, preparing to leave the cover of the couch they were still hiding under. He had the sinking feeling that it was quite possible that the cat would see his mission as over as soon as he was out of sight, however. Becky could take him home just as much as Sam could, after all. His feline companion might have counted on that, for all the pigeon knew.

"Hey, I'll follow in a minute and take you home… like I promised," the long-haired cat quickly reassured his friend. He was pretty sure he had just seen doubt on the bird's face and he really couldn't have that! If Sam made a promise, he kept it if it was possible in any way.

"Thanks, Gigantor," Gabriel chirped, rubbing his head against the cat's face unexpectedly before he finally hopped toward Becky.

The woman had returned inside as quickly as she had for three reasons. First of all, she still was in a bathrobe and had rollers in her hair. Then of course there was the thing about a cat running into her house. Most importantly however, Lilith was still throwing a tantrum about having lost said cat outside and the kid scared her more often than not.

"Gabriel!" Becky exclaimed surprised as soon as her eyes fell on the archangel-pigeon who was approaching her, "Where did you come from? Chuck already asked for you! I told him not to worry, of course. But to be honest I was pretty sure something had eaten you. Slow birds get eaten all the time after all and we all know that you're not exactly fast."

Actually, Gabriel had been very fast with the delivery of his messages for a while, but then he had slowed down considerably all of a sudden. Chuck had worried about him then too, but there had been no signs that something was wrong with the pigeon. He simply had become slower.

"Hey, I'm never late! I'm just never early, either. I'm exactly as fast as I want to be!" Gabriel protested, knowing that the cat could hear every word that was spoken and not wanting Sam to think that he actually was slow, "Except for this time, but the circumstances were completely different!"

To demonstrate the last point for the woman as well, the golden bird extended his hurt wing and limped around a bit. Honestly, he didn't exactly give a flying rat's ass about what Becky thought of him as long as his father was satisfied with the way he handled his duties, but he couldn't let the woman just throw things like that out there while the Samsquatch listened!

"Oh Gabriel!" Becky immediately reacted to the show, hurrying to pick the pigeon up very carefully, "You are hurt!"

The golden bird gave the woman a pitiful look for good measure before he settled for holding on to her finger. That was more like the reaction he thought he deserved. After being accused of being slow before he had forgotten everything about his earlier thoughts of it being inconvenient when she fussed about him too much, to be honest.

"And you still came to me to bring me the message," Becky added in an awed tone that would be clearly over exaggerated coming from basically everyone but her. The blonde woman just was like that, however. "You brave, brave little soldier!"

"At least you're sorry now," Gabriel huffed, "I say you take your message and go to fetch my crumbs, so Gigantor and I can be on our merry ways."

Usually, the pigeon would of course stay to eat said crumbs - which might not exactly compare to Castiel's pie crumbs, but were good anyway – but in this case he'd make an exception and just use the minute the woman would have to leave them alone to mount Sam again. Unfortunately, Becky had completely different plans, however.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Gabriel nearly squeaked when he noticed that she made no move to put him down somewhere and go to the kitchen, "Becky, this is not funny! What are you doing?"

Sam very carefully peeked out from under the couch to see what was going on. What he heard from his friend didn't exactly sound all too good, even if he doubted that the woman meant Gabriel any harm. There was no use denying that humans were the species that was hardest to communicate with. They just never seemed to get the most obvious hints! Some of them, anyway.

"Don't worry, I'll get you back to Chuck," the blonde woman finally explained, "We'll just have to make a detour over my bedroom. I need to get dressed."  
"What do you mean 'we'?" Gabriel protested, unsuccessfully trying to get out of Becky's grasp, "Sam! That minute is up!"

Sure, the golden bird didn't particularly want to be taken to Becky's bedroom to begin with, but most of all he didn't like the idea that she'd be the one to take him home. Not that it would make that much of a difference in the end, but he had gotten it into his head that Sam had to be the one to bring him back to his father and brothers and he wanted things to work out that way. Gabriel generally didn't like it when people ruined his best laid plans. Becky was lucky that she didn't possess a car and that bicycles were damn hard to aim at from a distance!

"I… uh… what am I supposed to do against that?" Sam replied a little helplessly. He didn't like where this was going any more than the pigeon did, but he didn't exactly see what he could do against it. He clearly wouldn't be any more successful with explaining to Becky that she really didn't have to take Gabriel anywhere, because he was going to make sure the bird got back to his home safe and sound.

"Something. Anything!" Gabriel chirped nearly hysterically, "You promised!"

The brown cat gave a long-suffering sigh and scurried away from his hiding place and stopped Becky in her tracks when he sat in front of her feet. It was true, he had promised and he would do his damndest to keep the promise! Even if the pigeon hadn't grown on him as much as he had, he'd have tried his best and even though he knew that allowing the woman to handle Gabriel for a while didn't mean that he'd never see him again, he didn't like the idea that someone would take the bird away from him.

"Look, Becky, my ride has arrived, you can let me go now!" the pigeon stated as he struggled to get free once more. Unfortunately, she didn't loosen her grip any, even if the bird seemed to have lost her attention the moment the cat had shown up.

"Oh my… I nearly forgot about you!" Becky blinked a couple of times, "You're a real beauty!"

Sam cocked his head, looking at the woman with big eyes, trying to figure out how to proceed from there. She obviously wasn't too unhappy about having a strange cat in her house which was something, but that alone didn't exactly get them any closer to their goal.

"If you would just give my bird back to me, we could all go back to our plans for the day," the long-haired cat finally spoke. He knew the woman had no chance to understand what he was saying, but he didn't have a better idea to make her see what this was all about, either.

"Oh, I'm yours now?" Gabriel chirped happily at the same time that Becky purred, "You look so soft and fluffy!"

Before either of the animals knew what had just happened, the blonde woman put the pigeon down on the table next to her and moved to pick up the cat instead. Sam blamed his surprise at the move for his delayed reaction, but when he tried to flee, it was much too late already.

"So fluffy!" Becky repeated, cuddling the unwilling but not yet struggling cat mercilessly.

"Lady… Lady! … Ugh… Gabe… we need to get out of here!" Sam huffed, trying to force the human to release him without hurting her too much, "But she hasn't read the message!"

At this point, the long-haired cat gave much more of a damn about the message than the pigeon did. All he cared about was getting back to his feline companion!  
"Hey, we tried, she didn't take it. She had her chance, she blew it. It's company policy!" Gabriel replied, hopping to the spot on the table that was closest to the other two. Chances were Sam would have to grab him again, but he was strangely okay with that.

"Woah, keep your hands to yourself!" the brown cat finally hissed, which surprised Becky enough that she didn't hold on to Sam as tightly as before. He immediately took his chance and jumped out of her arms and onto the table, muttering a quick 'Sorry' before he took Gabriel back between his jaws once more.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, kb18142, Keefer, CherylB1964, Riceball-1989, Alley of the Labyrinth, ImagineYourself64 and XxZessxX for last chapter's reviews!

You're making my days with those reviews! :-)

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**13**

Castiel really didn't like thinking badly about people, but the suspicion that Anna might have something to do with Sam's disappearance wouldn't leave him alone. She had miraculously found one of his cats before after all and while the blue-eyed man had been nothing but grateful that she had returned Dean to him, he also had had the nagging suspicion that Anna had been the one who had catnapped his friend in the first place.

"Hey, Cas, Cas, Cas, Cas, Cas!" the blonde cat chanted, walking alongside his human, still trying to get his attention back on him so he would postpone the search for Sam for another while, "Come on, look at me, Cas. Let's go home. We can play something. You'd like that, right, Cas?"

For once, the dark-haired human completely ignored the short-haired cat, however. He was determined to at least ask Anna nicely, if she had by any chance seen Sam. Castiel wasn't quite sure how he was going to react, if he found out that she had indeed kept one of his cats from him yet again, however. He'd take her off his Christmas mailing list in the very least!

"Castiel!" Anna exclaimed happily, as son as she had opened the front door, "Are you taking me up on that offer for a cup of coffee finally?"

The blue-eyed man felt nearly bad for having to crush her hopes like he would as soon as he made any sort of reply, but his worries for Sam kept him from feeling all too guilty. He could still make amends once he knew for sure that Anna had had nothing to do with the long-haired cat's disappearance!

"I am looking for Sam," Castiel explained curtly, trying not to sound like he was accusing the red-haired woman of anything yet however, "I have last seen him yesterday and it is highly unusual for him to be gone over night."

While the two cats were allowed to go outside whenever they wished to, the human had made sure to get a cat door that only opened one way. Sam and Dean could get inside by themselves and didn't have to wait for Castiel to realize that they were sitting in front of the door, but he had to open the door for them to get back outside. So, if the brown cat had come back some time during the night, the blue-eyed man would have known.

Dean sat next to Castiel's leg, glaring at Anna for a few long moments before he huffed out a breath in exasperation. He had tried to let the human know that he didn't have to worry, that he simply should ignore that Sam was gone (and focus all his attention on Dean instead), but he hadn't listened carefully enough and now was worried over nothing! Then again, humans apparently liked to do that and the blonde cat had often wondered, if they didn't need their worries to survive. Humans were strange in any case.

"I haven't seen your cat," Anna replied with a light shrug. She had to admit, if only to herself, that she might have held one of her neighbor's cats captive again, if she had thought that that would force Castiel to pay attention to her. However, ever since her last attempt to do exactly that both cats hadn't gotten anywhere close enough to her to get her hands on them. Looking at it in retrospect, her plan might not have been great to begin with.

"Are you absolutely certain that you have not seen Sam anywhere?" the blue-eyed man repeated his question just to give her a chance to take the lie back without any repercussions. He couldn't be sure if she had lied to him of course, but a lot of things weren't necessarily how they seemed with Anna.

"Are you calling me a liar?" the red-haired woman exclaimed, scandalized.

Dean huffed out a breath again, thinking that that was hardly the worst that Castiel could have called her. 'Catnapper' came to mind, for example. Unbeknownst to the cat, the human standing next to him was thinking the exact same thing. He never got to voice the thought, however.

"Stop! Drop the pigeon!" a high-pitched and clearly out of breath female voice yelled, drawing the attention of everyone out on the street to her and the long-haired cat she was chasing on her bicycle.

Becky hadn't even had the time to change out of her pajamas and bathrobe before she had had to jump on her bike and make sure she didn't lose sight of the – stunningly beautiful – cat and Chuck's pigeon. Even if Gabriel hadn't made any effort to save himself from what she had seen - he had stood perfectly still while the cat had run toward him to grab him after all – he still didn't deserve becoming breakfast. It would break Chuck's heart to lose one of his pigeons too and when he was down he tended to do horrible things to the characters in his books. Given how angsty they already were, adding another tragedy to Chuck's life would surely lead to another event of apocalyptic proportions and Becky's poor fragile heart – and psyche – really couldn't take that!

Anna was still staring at the scene dumbly when Castiel kicked into gear and ran after the cat he had only just identified as his missing friend. Dean had been a second faster and had started to chase his brother simply as a matter of principle. Besides, he really wanted to be the first one to laugh at Sammy for the things he had gotten himself into.

"Good thing Becky's out of shape, isn't it Gigantor?" Gabriel commented. He wasn't exactly comfortable traveling between Sam's jaws once more, but it wasn't like they had had much of a choice. Becky had started to chase them immediately, so they hadn't had the possibility to change positions once they had made their way through the open window in the blonde woman's living room.

Sam grunted his agreement. He had been running at top speed for quite some time already however and wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to keep it up. Gabriel's point still stood, though. Becky apparently didn't use her bike that often and didn't quite reach a good speed with it. In fact, it looked like Castiel was catching up to her on foot, already.

"Just a couple more houses, Samsquatch!" the pigeon cheered. He could smell victory on this and getting the blonde woman to Chuck so he could tell her whatever the message said himself was about as good as giving her the message, anyway!

"Drop the pigeon!" Becky wheezed one more time just as Castiel called, "Sam, stop!"

The golden bird was really happy that he was traveling by cat and not by dog that moment. With a dog the owner's command might have led to an aborted mission. With a cat the owners command meant little more than a friendly suggestion that could and most likely would be ignored.

"What the hell did you get yourself into, Sammy?" Dean asked, jogging next to his brother and the blasted pigeon that had started all this. Then again, the blonde cat had to admit that the golden bird had just presented him with enough material to tease his brother with for months!

"He really can't talk right now, but you can leave a message," Gabriel answered in a snarky tone before he finally saw the one thing that made him all chipper again, "It's the one with the red door!"

Sam used the last of his energy to speed up once more, Dean matching his stride while the two humans fell a little further behind. As soon as he reached the black doormat saying 'keep out, genius at work' – a gift given to Chuck by Becky – he released the pigeon from his mouth, working his jaws for a few moments to get them to work properly again.

"Ring the doorbell, Dean," the long-haired cat panted. He wasn't going to do any high jumping anytime soon that was for sure, but they should better alert Gabriel's human before the others caught up with them for good.

"Alright," the older cat agreed, getting ready to jump against the doorbell as his brother had asked of him, "But only because I really want to see the end of this!"

Dean hadn't exactly advertised it, but he had gotten some practice with ringing doorbells shortly after Anna had held him captive. Ringing her doorbell repeatedly and hiding in the bushes when she had come to open the door had been about the best revenge plan he had been able to come up with at the time.

This definitely was the first time that he used that particular skill for a good purpose, however. He really wanted to see how exactly his little brother's journey would end, too. From what Benny had told him the night before he had already assumed that it had been quite the adventure and he had nearly been sorry not to be a part of it – except for the part where a pigeon had been riding around on Sammy, that was – but he could now join the end of it and he would demand to hear about it later for sure.

"Look what the cat dragged in," a silent but surprisingly strong voice could suddenly be heard from Sam's right.

"Nice to see you too, Kali," Gabriel greeted the praying mantis that came into view just a moment later. She didn't seem to be too impressed by the friendly greeting. In fact, she looked pretty pissed off.

"I hardly got my beauty sleep in because of you," Kali stated accusingly, eyeing the two cats critically. The one looked too worn out and the other looked too amused to do anything much, however.

"Aww, were you worried?" the pigeon chirped, pleased with what he had just heard. It was doubtful that Lucifer, Michael or Raphael had cared too much about his absence, but at least the praying mantis hadn't disappointed him in that respect.

"No, but your father kept stomping through the garden to look for you," Kali replied in a cool tone before she turned around to retreat before the humans she could hear approaching reached them.

Gabriel's mood wasn't affected by her words, however. Thinking that Kali of all people might have worried about him had been stupid on his part, anyway. Besides, he had also learned that his father really had been concerned and that was much better.

The two humans had been delayed for another little while by Becky nearly falling off the bicycle when her bathrobe had gotten entangled with the chain of the bike and Castiel helping her first back to her feet and then to free herself. There was stunned silence between them as they watched how the golden pigeon sat between Sam's front legs. The silence was broken when Dean once more jumped against the doorbell just to make sure that the human had heard it, both humans were still stunned, however.

"Uh… so… she's a friend of yours?" Sam asked, still a little baffled by the encounter they had just had.

"Oh yeah," the golden bird answered, "I know her intimately."

"A pigeon and a praying mantis?" the long-haired cat blinked a couple of times, trying to process what he had heard. He didn't know for sure if Gabriel had meant to imply what he had gotten from it, but it didn't look like the pigeon wanted to disprove the story.

"Just you wait until I figure out a way for the two of us to have sex," Gabriel stated seriously just as Becky finally got her hands on him to pick him up.

Dean didn't even stop laughing when Chuck finally opened the door.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Keefer, kb18142, CherylB1964, Maddy Love Castiel, Riceball-1989, XxZessxX and robby1925 for last chapter's reviews!

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**14**

Dean ducked low as the entire group followed an obviously flustered Chuck into his house. This was where that damned pigeon lived after all, so the blonde cat felt justified in being highly suspicious of their new surroundings. Oh, it wasn't that he was worried or even afraid for himself. He was a hunter, a real warrior, nothing could scare him! He had to make sure that Castiel with his inferior human instincts was safe as well however and that was the only reason why he was walking as close as possible to him!

"I… uh… I…. didn't expect visitors," Chuck mumbled, fumbling with his blue-striped bathrobe to get it closed completely in the front. If he had known that someone might visit he would have at least worn pants over his boxers, usually anyway.

"Given the circumstances, I might as well be the one with the inappropriate attire," Castiel deadpanned, sparing a quick side-glance toward Becky, who was still dressed in her bathrobe as well, after all. He wasn't entirely sure why he had entered the house at all, but Chuck had stepped aside to let them all inside and Sam had immediately followed Becky – or rather Gabriel – inside which had then prompted both Dean and Castiel to follow.

"Do you want a bathrobe, too? Chuck has a few," Becky suggested, startling not only the two men with it. The blonde woman didn't seem to notice however as she simply kept chattering on. "This is one of the strangest mornings I've had in a while! First there's not one singly leaflet in the mail, then the crazy girl from across the street attacks me and finally I find Gabriel and this beautiful kitty in my living room!"

The long-haired cat was pretty sure that he was never going to live any of this down. First Dean and Castiel had seen how he had been chased by Becky on her bike, then Gabriel had made his intentions of being in some sort of physical relationship with him known and just when his older brother had sort of stopped laughing about that the blonde woman had said something that had immediately started the grinning and chuckling again!

"His name is Sam," Castiel pointed out. The blue-eyed man was sure that this was the time to let the woman know that the long-haired cat belonged to him and that he didn't intend to change anything about that.

"Hear that, Sammy, you're 'this beautiful kitty' now!" Dean commented between laughs, sitting close enough to Castiel's leg so they were touching, "Looks like not only the pigeon has a crush on you!"

Gabriel bristled at that even faster than Sam did. He had only just decided that he absolutely wanted to have the cat all to himself, even if being in a monogamous relationship might damn them both to being celibate for some time, so the thought of having to share with Becky of all people was scandalous!

"Anyway, I think Gabriel hurt his wing. He was hopping around and didn't even try to fly," Becky finished, noticing how the bird was getting restless in her hands. Besides, they were all standing in the middle of the living room and someone had to start with getting them back to the topic at hand. Identifying what the topic at hand even was wasn't that easy, however.

"I'll… I'll take a look at that…" Chuck replied, nodding to himself as he reached out to take Gabriel from Becky. That the bird might have hurt himself explained his prolonged – even for his standards – absence. It did not explain why there were two cats as well as a distant neighbor Chuck had only seen in passing once or twice in his house, however. He really wished – not for the first time – that Gabriel could simply talk to him.

The pigeon kept perfectly still as his father was carefully checking his wings, it was only when the human frowned and threw him a few inches in the air that he spread his wings purely out of instinct and flew in a small circle over the heads of everyone present. He then quickly landed right next to Sam, rubbing his head against the cat's chest before he could get mad.

"You could fly this entire time?" the long-haired cat groaned, ducking his head to give the bird's head a quick lick. He wasn't really angry or anything, at least not yet. He wasn't sure how he was going to react to learning that the pigeon had just deceived and used him this entire time, however. He'd give Gabriel the chance to explain first, in any case.

"I don't think so," the pigeon replied awkwardly, sitting between Sam's front paws, ignoring the strange looks the humans gave them. He also ignored how amused Dean was already again, but the other cat's opinion didn't really concern him either way. He mostly had to worry about his father's judgment, in fact.

"You don't think so?" Sam repeated after his little companion. He honestly didn't know what to think of the evasive answer he had gotten.

"It's not like I actually tried!" Gabriel stated defensively, "Look, back in your garden my wing hurt like hell, but after that… you never gave me a reason to have to try. Everything was going great!"

The brown cat huffed out a breath, but didn't object. There had been a lot of times when the pigeon should have better taken flight, but Sam had to agree that everything had worked out for the best. Not to mention that he simply didn't feel like being mad at Gabriel while the pigeon was nestling against his chest in a sort of apology.

"Your pigeon is very remarkable," Castiel spoke in a perfectly neutral tone. He might have been surprised by the level of affection the bird displayed for the younger one of his two cats, that there was something going on with those two had been quite obvious to him before already, however. Sam had acted like he had wanted to protect Gabriel earlier, after all.

"Gabriel is an archangel pigeon," Chuck stated like that explained why exactly the golden bird had made friends with the long-haired cat, "He is… he is one of a kind, though. His brothers are more… conventional."

Saying that Gabriel was the very strange one of the bunch would have felt like badmouthing the bird. It wasn't like Chuck was bothered or inconvenienced by the pigeon's behavior, it simply was extraordinary. Sending the messenger pigeons out was more like a pet-peeve of his, anyway. It wasn't like he couldn't get the messages across in another way by himself.

"Conventional? Boring is what they are," the golden bird commented in a huff, "And bickering like an old married… triple."

It was mostly Michael and Lucifer arguing however, so they were like an old married couple. Gabriel hadn't wanted to exclude Raphael. Not to mention that his black and brown brother was annoying him frequently enough to be included, anyway.

"Oh great, there're more from where he came from," Dean snarked, "We better get out of here quick!"

Sometimes the blonde cat wondered, if his human really could read his mind. Castiel often said the right things with the exactly right timing, either way.

"I am glad that we were able to get to the bottom of this, but I think it is time for us to leave now," the blue-eyed man stated in a friendly tone. Sometimes he just had to wonder if Dean didn't understand him, after all. The cat had stood up the exact moment he had spoken about leaving, anyway.

"Uh… were we?" Chuck asked while Becky nodded along. The two of them weren't quite so sure that they knew what had happened that morning. They would have been content to just say that it had been a strange morning and move on, to be honest.

"Of course. Sam and Gabriel are friends now," Castiel explained as if it was the most obvious things in the world. Sam had to give the man credit for drawing all the right conclusions. Unfortunately he tended to express things in an all too easy to misunderstand way, though. "And they obviously spent the night together."

Gabriel didn't seem to see anything wrong with the statement and the long-haired cat wouldn't necessarily have either, but the way Dean was laughing again was annoying him just a little. Okay, it was annoying him a lot, especially since he had long since run out of new comments about Dean and Castiel and thus didn't have anything to shoot back with when his older brother would inevitably tease him about all this.

"Shut it, jerk!" Sam finally huffed, getting ready to leave just a little reluctantly. He'd see Gabriel again before long he was sure, but Dean would have a lot of time to annoy him in the meantime.

"At least I'm not some pigeon's bitch, bitch!" the blonde cat shot back, smirking.

The golden pigeon couldn't help chuckling at that, too. He immediately took flight to get away from Sam's warningly raised paw and landed on his father's shoulder.

The bird's move brought his presence back to Becky's attention. In all honesty, she might have been a little preoccupied watching the long-haired cat before. It would be really nice, if Sam decided to visit her more often in the future. Oh well, she knew where he lived in case he didn't. She'd only have to come up with a reason to visit the dark-haired man, but that really shouldn't be that much of a problem. Once upon a time she had spent a lot of early mornings in front of Chuck's house so she could intercept his morning newspaper and deliver it herself, after all.

"Oh, Chuck, I never read your message. What was it about?" the blonde woman stated. Getting the piece of paper off Gabriel's leg hadn't been on the forefront of her mind for quite some time. She had been busy trying to – uselessly – rescue the bird, after all.

"I just wanted to tell you that coffee this afternoon was okay with me," Chuck shrugged lightly.

Becky clearly was happy with what she had just heard and it didn't look like Gabriel was surprised by hearing what exactly he had tried to deliver as hard as he had. The revelation of the content of the message still left a bad taste in the long-haired cat's mouth. Of course, the fact that Dean was once more incredibly amused played a rather big part in that.

"That was the all important message?" Sam asked incredulously while Dean broke into another fit of laughter. The brown cat was quite sure that he hadn't heard his brother laugh this much in a very long time. He would have preferred it, if not all the laughing had been at his expense, though.

"There's no such thing as and unimportant message! Some are just more important than others!" Gabriel pointed out in a lecturing tone, "See you later, Gigantor!"

Maybe the most important thing about this particular message hadn't been its actual content, however. It might have been all about the journey to get it delivered.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note: **Thanks so much to Larkafree, Maknatuna, Maddy Love Castiel, CherylB1964, kb18142, Keefer, robby1925, ImagineYourself64, XxZessxX and Alley of the Labyrinth for last chapter's reviews!

So this is the end. Thank you all for sticking with the story, for reading and for the kind words!

I have started a new story by the title of "Attack of the 46 inch Winchester" (it's not rated M, so get your minds out of the gutter ;-)) and I will start uploading chapters for it by Sunday I hope. So look out for it!

* * *

**15**

"I always thought that Dean was screwed in the head," Balthazar admitted, looking out of the window and completely ignoring how both Castiel and the blonde cat shot him murderous glares, "But now I see that both your cats are bonkers."

The blonde man had come by for his weekly visit just to find out that Sam apparently had made friends with a grey and golden messenger pigeon, a story his younger brother had told him with a completely straight face and with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. Apparently, Castiel thought that his new friend was good for the long-haired cat and that he seemed more content ever since the pigeon had appeared. Balthazar of course thought that all this was one more indication for something being in the air or the water around the place.

"Some might say that you are strange for speaking with a British accent, even though you come from an American family," Castiel shot back, stroking Dean's fur soothingly to keep the cat from jumping off his chair and scratching the other man. Alright, the blue-eyed man didn't honestly expect his short-haired cat to do anything alike, but petting him had a calming effect on him, as well.

"The difference is that people speaking with all kinds of accents are a thing, Cassy," Balthazar lectured, wiggling his index finger in front of his brother's nose until he had to retreat it very quickly when Dean decided to bat at it, "Cats making friends with pigeons aren't."

Besides, Balthazar hadn't simply chosen to speak in a different accent. He had spent years in England and had decided that he liked the way of speaking. It wasn't like he had sounded that much like his siblings before with Castiel and Rachel's overly formal way of talking, anyway.

"Obviously they are," the blue-eyed man shot back, looking out of the window and toward the bushes where Sam and Gabriel were resting in the shadows, "And I would have expected you of all people to be more open minded."

While Dean always liked to listen to Castiel berating the jerk he called his older brother he didn't exactly enjoy listening to his human defending Sammy's strange relationship with that damned bird. It wasn't that the blonde cat didn't like that his younger brother was making friends, it was more that particular friend he couldn't get on board with. No really, it was all about Gabriel being a pastry thieving son of a bitch – a pigeon bitch, whatever – and not about having to share Sam's attention with somebody else.

That Dean had also highly disapproved of that rat Ruby was just a coincidence and to be honest the golden pigeon might be a slight step up from her. Flying rats might be slightly better than actual rats, especially if the earthbound kind of rat tried to lure Sammy into doing her bidding with the offer of catnip! Luckily the younger cat had seen that Ruby wasn't good company and they had removed the beady-eyed disease spreader from their lives together.

Dean stretched and jumped off his chair gracefully to go and see if Benny was up already. His brother wasn't the only one who had a friend, after all.

"I am plenty open minded!" the short-haired cat heard Balthazar exclaim before he hurried up the stairs. He really didn't need to hear anything more about the stupid human's sexual escapades in this lifetime and that was where the conversation would inevitably lead from this point on. Dean already knew much more than he had ever wanted to really. The only thing about somebody else's sex life he needed to know was that neither Sam nor Cas had one, really! That at least was more reassuring than it was disturbing!

Castiel being a single and planning not to change anything about it meant that there was no danger that the human would stop paying attention to him… them. Besides, Dean had gotten used to sleeping in a bed and he didn't want to change anything about that habit!

As far as Sam was concerned, he was Dean's brother and thus a completely asexual being or so he liked to believe. At least, when the only possible partner was that despicable pigeon that made his brother happy and thus maybe wasn't completely despicable and only somewhat unbearable.

"Hey Benny, you up?" the blonde cat called as soon as he had squeezed through the opening to the attic. It was still early in the evening and the sun hadn't gone down so it was questionable, if the bat was awake already, but he could always try. Benny never took it badly, if he was woken up early, anyway.

"Broth'r, you're going to turn me diurnal in no time at this rate," the bat commented, yawning. He still got off the roof beam he had been holding on to and sat down next to the sunbeam Dean had made himself at home at.

"I don't hear you complaining," the cat smirked, getting comfortable. Cas was talking to his stupid brother, Sam was talking to his stupid pigeon, but Dean got to chat with his awesome bat-friend. Not to mention that, once Balthazar was gone, Castiel was basically all his – okay, like 70% his and 30% Sam's – again. There was no question who was the winner here!

* * *

"Biological programming be damned," Gabriel chirped, snuggling up to Sam's chest, "I'd miss you much more than I could ever miss sex!"

Of course, that he was content and happy as things were didn't mean that he'd stop thinking about ways they could bring their relationship on the next level. He might have underestimated how hard the lack of lips and external genitals on his part and the presence of a barbed penis on the cat's part would make coming up with something satisfying and completely safe for both of them. Oh well, cuddling was nice, either way. The long-haired cat was a hell of a cuddler, too.

"Thanks, birdie," Sam replied lazily, licking the side of the golden bird's head affectionately. He had gotten used to the very strange comments his partner – and yeah, at this point there was no use calling him anything else – loved to come up with every now and then. Actually, he had learned to take them for what they were. Strange compliments and even stranger random thoughts the pigeon came up with. Gabriel hardly ever aimed before he shot, so to say – unless it was about dirty cars or the cars of _idjits_, that was – and while he unfortunately often hit anyway, it wasn't his intention to hurt anyone. Okay, it wasn't his intention to hurt Sam, with others the long-haired cat couldn't be too sure at times.

"So, what about you?" the pigeon asked all of a sudden, looking up at the cat intently. He had decided that this was going to be a monogamous relationship, even if it might stay somewhat platonic, now he had to make sure that he and the Catsquatch were on the same page.

"Acting insecure doesn't suit you, Gabe," Sam pointed out in a joking tone before he realized how serious the bird seemed to be about his question, "Okay, but one stupid comment and I'm going to eat the next crumbs Cas gives us myself!"

Being a good host to the pigeon and a good human to the cat, Castiel often provided them with snacks of some sort and the long-haired cat was all too happy to let the pigeon have whatever he wanted, but threatening to change something about that was a very effective way to get Gabriel to consider his next steps.

"You can't miss what you don't know, right?" Sam asked after the bird had nodded his consent to the condition. Honestly, he didn't mind talking to Gabriel about all sorts of things anymore, but he didn't exactly want to be made fun of for being completely inexperienced. Dean had already covered that by mocking him mercilessly, anyway.

"Wait! Really?" the pigeon couldn't help replying. He was pretty sure that this didn't count as a stupid comment, anyway. He was simply making sure that he understood what his partner was telling him correctly. He was being an attentive significant other!

"Yeah," the cat confirmed with a sigh, "Jess and I… we were waiting for a good moment, you know?"

"Guess that didn't come," Gabriel commented in a small voice, "Sorry, Samsquatch."

One of the things the pigeon had learned and really tried to remember was that bringing up Sam's mate wasn't a good idea. It brought the cat down like nothing else. Not that that wasn't completely understandable. However, if he offered to talk voluntarily for once, Gabriel would listen attentively.

"She had plans to ease her family into getting used to not having her around. She wanted to move in with us and Cas," Sam went on quietly, "Then one evening we were talking about her staying the night just to see, but she wasn't sure and I told her to go back home 'cause she shouldn't do things for me that didn't feel completely right. I never saw her again…"

There were moments in life when finding the right things to say was just impossible, but luckily those were often the moments when saying nothing was the better option, anyway. Instead Gabriel snuggled up to Sam as much as possible and rubbed his head against the cat's neck and cheek affectionately, cuddling him for a long time in complete silence to make him feel better again.

It was hard to say which one of them was more surprised when they realized that it felt quite nice when the pigeon rubbed the back of his beak against the cat's nose just right. He had done it more by accident, not taking enough care to keep his beak away from all the soft parts of his partner, the new realization served as a good distraction from their earlier topic, however.

"That was nice," Sam whispered nearly in wonder after Gabriel had recreated the action precisely just to make sure that it really worked for both of them.

"I guess we just figured out how to kiss," the pigeon stated in a somewhat smug tone, "See? Told you we'd find a way for everything!"

Every journey had to start with the first steps and they were good at travelling together, so Gabriel had never been too worried that things wouldn't work out for them.

"You might just turn me into a believer," Sam chuckled, hugging the pigeon close to his chest with his paws. Then again, what had he expected getting involved with an archangel pigeon?

Chances were that putting a pigeon among cats usually ended tragically for the bird, but they both were positive that in their case they had scored the jackpot with a happy end.


End file.
